How To: run a dominant IDOC guild on UOR v.010

The "true nature" is that TC and I had leadership disagreements because my style is too nice.

How you weave that into your narrative is your move @Mes.

I'll say this. It's 10:30am, I'm in an Osaka Starbucks, and this thread is way better breakfast reading than the back of a cereal box.

Did any of you get pregnant? That's all this needs to top my grandma's soap operas....

Tell you what, TC. I'd be willing to strong arm odd hour idocs (as those are the hours which I play). If you really wanna stick it to these guys, help me help you.

All it needs is a bad guy named Victor.

Victor Stroganoff

Therein lies the rub. This is why I never got into this business (and also, page 2+ of this thread).

Honestly, this type of thing is like hitting puberty for a good UO shard. UOSecondAge had it with the Lightshade/rare camping dust-up, and we have it here with the IDOC Guild of Leetness. UOR is growing up so fast!

Also to not be a total dink on this thread, I will say congrats on figuring out a fair way to divvy up loot that everyone was on board for. I always wondered how your group or the various Harrower groups did it.

This was the part of the system that worked best. I cannot remember a single issue ever arising over gold or items. Might be difficult for many to believe but over 2 years and 20 members and over a billion gold, greed was neither the motivator nor the cause of a single problem. Even to the end.

The hardest part, as TrojanCow is explaining, is how do you balance friendship, duty, responsibility, and discipline.

This was my biggest struggle and my biggest failure. Because idocing requires a degree of mercilessness - both external and internal - that isn't easily meshed with the atmosphere of a typical guild.

It is hard to tell a good friend, who you have gamed with a long time, "hey I know your new job isn't allowing you enough time to be fully committed to this anymore, why don't you take a break?" Its hard because I like playing with that person and they like playing with me. It has nothing to do with greed. On both sides it has to do with simply wanting to keep going because the ride is just that freakin fun.

I will give an example. In dec of 2014 I was getting very frustrated because I wanted to simply do too much in my few hours each day (typically 2-4 each evening after work and family time which is typical for most in our group).

I wanted to do the xmas event and I was also involved in OS guild events. I was managing idoc vendors and sales and other things.

I was frustrated because I was honestly having too much fun (yes i consider vendors, auctions, and clicking house signs fun and not work). What a problem to have, right?

It became clear to me that rather than continue and not be able to do my team mates the justice they deserve, I stepped down for awhile. Trojan did the same thing when he would run into the same problem.

Quite simply, not everyone can do that and will get defensive. I've seen it a number of times and I don't think it was ever greed that played a part, just an unwillingness for folks to realize that an idoc guild differs from a regular guild because its all fun and everything but its coupled with responsibility and a lot of selflessness. You can't be casual. Everyone agrees to that when signing up but when their time comes, they become upset. And again, not because of greed. They simply want to stay on the team. Who wouldn't? It's fun being on a team. Especially a winning team.

TrojanCow managed personnel different than me. I can't fault him for the way he did things. In our convo he said he even appreciates why I do what i do. I'm not the type of person to kick somebody off my team. Ill talk to them, try to get them to do what is right for the team, but when it comes to laying down the law.. anybody will tell you. I'm a giant pushover.

Sun Tzu obviously figured all this out millennia ago,

"If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless."


In my opinion the system we eventually developed to address this worked well. Members could opt to go inactive or 50% but they had to declare it in advance and still had specific obligations weekly. This seemed most fair to me at least and I think TrojanCow would agree.

As far as the pm I sent TrojanCow - yep I was really upset. I was even butthurt. But what's done is done and I will say this for all the world to read - Sorry TrojanCow for the times I undermined you. I am sorry as well for lashing out. I've reflected on it much and hope to learn from everything that's transpired!

I eagerly await more additions to the guide. I also look forward to more attacks on my character from people I've basically never dealt with more than one conversation.

This isn't necessarily an insane thing to do. Anyone with enough time and effort dedicated to a specific thing can achieve quite a lot (both in game and out). I'll have to piggy-back off of what Mes said regarding it being a video game. It is played to kill RL boredom and meant to be a form of entertainment. There is a fine line between just enjoying the game, and going to the extreme of what you're actually doing in-game feels like a chore, but that's what's really great about this game - you can invest your time as you please and achieve goals you want to achieve.

Money is obviously important in this game, but for me, owning a few pieces of essential, purposeful items, such as ethys', runebooks, housing and resources is plenty for me to partake in the parts of the game I enjoy the most. Personally, I have too many RL ventures and other games I play for enjoyment to dedicate as much free time to one specific task such as this. Some people have the time and motive to "GO HARD"!! Again - To each their own. I've had people let me wear their high end items while they were on leave of some sort. Once that happened, I almost felt not like playing anymore because I felt as though I had hit the ceiling and there was no further end goal.

That being said:

@Pill : Who invited you to this thread? This is a rake and shovel conversation....NO HOES-OR-BROS ALOUD !

I miss elhorno

So... does anyone have the idoc timer on TrojanCow's place?

i don't think he is quitting the game, just IDOCing.....though I could be wrong...

Haha, sorry, not quitting. Eventually my stuff may very well IDOC though, either by accident or by choice. Should you get your hands on it, enjoy!

While it is almost guaranteed to be stressful and seem like a chore at times, and while the sheer length of this guide is going to make it seem complex, once you have dived in you will see that it is usually more fun than a chore and though it is complex, it gets simple quickly. Every member has set shit to do and eventually you can do it all pretty much just using your brain stem.

Also bear in mind, this is end-game stuff. AFAIK without exception every single one of us had played the game as most know it and we got bored and moved on to something else. I started on this server with zip and grinded monsters for a small house, then a small stone tower, then a large tower, then a large keep.... you get the point. I got tired of playing solo and started champing and made a small fortune chaining Baracoons. When I got tired of that, I got into IDOCing, which I also grew tired of.

I don't understand why someone would want to jump right to IDOCing. Until you are bored of it, I think the other stuff is more fun.

Well said Pill. I feel the same.

To me it seems like this IDOC'ing operation is way more work than enjoyment. Last night we crashed this IDOC and it was fun seeing all these reds scatter like a bunch of bugs. This is how I get my enjoyment of this game - when your enemies talk trash and run at the sight of you. ^__^

Ya... totally not fun at all to idoc. I went last night to an idoc and had fun, but guys, its not fun

Oh don't get me wrong, it is fun, but like all things in moderation.

I think he means the actual fighting that happened was fun, the logistics of running the map clicking house signs and whatnot doesn't sound fun at all