Forming a tradeskill guild

[Sean-Roach]

I wrote here about a week ago asking if there were any active tradeskill related clans, and as a result of that query, I got one response.

Unfortunately, although I suspect that De Opresso Libre is a fine organization, I did not feel it is for me, due to its not being a tradeskill oriented guild and its current political affialation, which I did not want to become entangled with.

Others, I'm sure, will scoff at this and find it a fine organization. Many others, I suspect.

Anyway, at about 3 PM tomorrow, CDT, (around 9 in the evening GMT, 1PM for you west coast folks, and 4PM for the east coast,) I intend to form a group of like minded persons and form a true Guild. A tradeskill guild. Should I be on earlier and I have 5 like-minded people already rearing to go, I will form the clan early, but I am unlikely to be awake much before Noon.

Currently, I'm planning on holding no alliance. Tradeskills will be the only focus, not RP or PvP. I only ask that you have at least 3x your level in one tradeskill and be fairly well represented in one or two others.

The following post is what I have in mind as bylaws. I will post them to a webpage at a later date, (as soon as I get a reply from my ISP, and edit the thing into HTML.

For this initial group of 3, I will take your ability to perform your tradeskills on faith, as I would rather get the guild up and running than dot every i and cross every t. These starting members will all be given sufficent status to enroll additional members.

Whoops, forgot to provide my name. In-game, on RK1, I am Doublebarrel.

[Sean-Roach]

Idea for organization.

Name: --Blanked to prevent someone else from stealing the name before I get a chance to claim it.--

Faction: Clan

Government: Republic

Description: A loose society of tradesmiths assembled to assist each other for the benefit of all.

Objective: Give tradesmiths a network that they can rely on to assist in working tradeskills. In this way no one tradesmith will have to advance every single tradeskill to process something from raw materials to salable goods. Rather, one might focus on chemistry, another on pharmatech, a third on elec. engineering. Between them they might produce goods none could finish on his or her own, and individually they can potentially maintain enough skill in the non-trade areas to remain viable players in the wilds of Rubi-Ka.

History: --Blanked because it hints at the name--

Must have at least 3xlevel on entrance and must maintain that level, in at least two tradeskills.
Use of nanoclusters is permitted, as well as the use of personally cast buffs, tutoring devices, and armor. Use of outside buffs is not. Yes, you may use any buff you can get to USE the skill, but in proving eligability you must be able to achieve 3 times your current level in your two target tradeskills from your own resources.

Both tests will occur within 1 minute of each other, and armor changes will be noted. You must be able to achieve 3 times your level in your target tradeskills from one configuration. If you can not maintain both skills at 300% of level at the same time, you are less useful in some tradeskills. For example, both Mechanical Engineering and Quantum Physics are needed for one particular tradeskill action in the processing of carbonrich rock. Thus you may use tutoring devices to raise one skill to achieve eligability.

A test will be devized to test any such claim of competency. This will be done by giving the tested a tradeskill item to process, that uses the skill that person claims to possess.

A single exception will exist to the requirement of 2 target tradeskills at 300% of level. This is that a person may instead take 3 target tradeskills that sum to 600% of level if that person can show that the complete processing of some loot-available item can be processed to a complete item, not another tradeskill item, of a QL equal to that person's level, with that combination of skills. For all practical purposes if any of those skills has to be at 300% of level to achieve this, that skill will be listed as a target skill, with the others listed jointly in a tradeskill1(percentage of 3xlevel)/tradeskill2(100-percentage of 3xlevel) format on the second line. At least one skill MUST still be at least 300 times current level even in this case.

Members will assist other members with constuction projects, when asked, with the following restrictions.
1. The result belongs to the person who provided the raw material.
2. If more than one person provides the raw material, all parties providing materials own the item. In this case, either the result is split, the person providing the "bulk" or "core" of the project pays the others for their input, or the item is sold with the profit split between the parties.
3. A person must be able to complete one step of the project, but it doesn't have to be the first step. A person might be able to turn compiled Algorithm into a programmed photon particle emitter, but not have the mechanical engineering to process it further into a nanocrystal. Or even to turn carbonrich rock into carbonrich ore. If that person provides all the ingredients, and can complete One of the steps, that person can expect the assistance of any other available member to take care of any other step.
4. No one will be asked to come to the requesting party to assist in a tradeskill. If you need help, you go to them.
5. No one will be asked to interrupt a current activity to help.
6. No one will be asked to put off other activities, including downtime, to help. However, if that character is seen doing anything else after supposedly logging off to eat/sleep/go to work/fill in the blank, they may be asked to prove current capacity in their two target skills. This one caveit is to prevent deficient characters from dodging activities that could show them to be no longer eligable for full membership.

If a person can not provide the 3 times his or her current level, minus 3, at any given time, (allowing for recent leveling, and time to hunt for implants and the like to achieve the necessary skill,) that persons current rank will be noted, and that person will be /demoted to applicant, and then asked to leave or raise the skill by the end of the day. If the person does neither, that person is removed by an administrator and blacklisted from ever rejoining the guild. If the person leaves, that person can rejoin after proving satisfactory skill.
If the person reachieves 300 percent in both target skills, that person will be restored to his or her original standing with no bad marks.

All current members, and their skill specialties, will be posted on a webpage for member browsing. A link to the AO character database will provide accurate skill information, while it will be assumed the two listed skills are at least 3 times what AO shows at the characters current level.

The "hangout" will be one of the general stores in a clan controlled city. Any face meetings will occur in one of these locations provided an engineer or nano-technician can be found among the members who can cast a summoning nano. Any parties will occur in one of these locations provided the same conditions exist. Any open tradeskill sessions will occur in one of these locations, again provided the same conditions exist.

There will be an attempt to have at least 2 open tradeskill sessions every week run by an officer of the guild. Everyone is INVITED to attend, but ultimately attendance is voluntary. If there are insufficient officers to ensure one such session can be run weekly, the polls will be opened to vote out existing officers who do not appear to be active and vote in new stock who have a reputaion of being available to fellow players.

Rank will be decided by openness in assistance to others, attendance to tradeskill sessions, and gametime from the perspective of other members. Actual records will not be kept, this will be based entirely on the perception of the membership.

Ranks will be elected, including president. The current president will run a poll, valid for 1 week, every other month, at the start of the month, to determine his or her own replacement, if any. The officer ranks below that will be voted upon at the same time, with the proviso that there will never be more than one Veteran or advisor for every 10 members, and no more than 5 Advisors. Upon completion of any election, the former president, if any, automatically takes the position of advisor for the following term unless the former president expresses a desire to leave the game for any period longer than a week. Members will be grouped by profession and level range, and will vote on a veteran from among their own numbers to speak for them. Once all veterans have been selected, the 6 higher officers will be selected from among those ranks, at large. The president, if the election is a regular one, will simply be the advisor who won the most votes, and is to hold no more power than any other advisor. (*)

All persons not officers will be members. The exception to this being persons who can no longer prove competency in their selected tradeskills, and those who have just joined.

The power to tax shall be delegated to the membership by election. Initially, there will be no taxes, but the possibility of the need, or desire, for future taxation can not be ignored. The pressident may open the polls on the issue of taxation at any time, but the polls must be maintained open for at least 1 week, and the president is asked to give the webmaster the issue in advance, to post to the webpage.

Initially there will be no affialation with any groups, other than the one(s) implied by being clan. If the membership should wish to associate with such a group, then the prepident shall hold elections, one to determine which group is best suited to the Guild, and one to determine if the majority wish to affailate with the majority winner of the first election.(**)

Members will be asked to keep track of tradeskill failures that they encounter, as not all tradeskills necessarily have a conveniently plottible line of what skill is needed to do certain things. These failures will be collected on the webpage so all can benefit, members and non-members alike.

Members will be asked to keep track of successful experiments, again so they can be made available on the web-page.

The strength of the organization, and the members in it, will be the result of its flexibility. A person might have the skills to handle a third of a recipe, but will be able to count on assistance for the remaining 2/3rds. Trade secrets should not be necessessary as others will be less likely to be able to muster this kind of skill and still be a viable hunter or player.





(*) If someone wanted to engineer a bot to take the roll of president, and if someone (perhaps the same someone), wanted to provide rackspace for it, the president can be a bot, to hold permanent title, and maintain the rules layed down here. In either case, a flesh and blood person will ultimately have to be entrusted with the position, with the hopes that he or she will not abuse that trust.

Ultimately, I will have the web-page. Should a future president prove tyrant, refusing to elinquish title after a dutifully held election, refusing to hold elections at the proper time, using the power to tax to defraud the membership, or any other abuse of the power that is inherent in being president, I will take my web-page and go home, (or restart the organization in parallel, to accept all members into their properly elected positions, including president.) All we will have lost is the name.

(**) If two similar associations split the otherwise "majority" vote, while a less popular stands alone, and thus gets a larger overall share, the persons who voted for the first two may form a majority that agrees against joining with the third. For an example, look to your history books to Teddy Roosevelts final run for president in the U.S.A. Look also for a reference to the "Bull Moose" party, it is the same. The gist of it is Roosevelt ended up absorbing enough of the votes from his own original party's candidate, that the other party's candidate won.

[OrionNT]

The "hangout" will be one of the general stores in a clan controlled city. Any face meetings will occur in one of these locations provided an engineer or nano-technician can be found among the members who can cast a summoning nano

just want to point out that Nano-Techs can not summon team members to there location. They can only warp themselves and the members of there team that are clost to the NT to pre-dtermined location in Tir or West Athen

[Sean-Roach]

Well, I got no responses in game. Either there is not demand for such a clan, or I didn't give enough time for interested people to see the message.

I'll try one more time tomorrow, same time, (about 3 CDT), and spend the rest of my time today in regular play.

[Lunayu]

It's hard starting a Guild of like minded people. I recommend getting your full team with anyone you can grab, starting your group, then kicking out the ones who you don't want in it.

If you want to be nice, which is always a good thing, you can let your group know they will only be together for a short amount of time.

I suggest hitting the Newbie zones. Backyards, etc. They usually are not already in an organization, making it less of a hassle for you.

Good luck and have fun!

P.S. I have a friend who would be interested in joining your group. He goes by the name of Jaibriol. He's low level, but he's in for the long haul.

[Sean-Roach]

I might try again when I have a weekend coming up that I'm actually off on, and remember it.

I didn't get a group together the second time either, so I figure it was one of two reasons. 1. not enough interest. 2. I should never try to get a guild together on a weekday before sunset.

[Lunayu]

I think your second point is the problem. Be sure to give yourself (and others) a good amount of time to form your organization. It may take minutes or hours. If your on at a time many aren't, count on hours.

[Sean-Roach]

Okay, I'm off Sunday so I'll try again Sunday about 3:00 PM local time, (CDT, that's 9:00 PM GMT, unless GMT isn't on Daylight Savings).

That's better than 4 days warning, and a weekend.

I still haven't gotten a response from my ISP about web-space yet though.