Poaching of players should be banned

[Dew Spinner]

I think many are NOT listening to what Marilyn is saying. All she is saying it is disrespectful to try to steal another fellowship member to join yours. She also said you can advertise your fellowship where it is set-up in Elevenar. If a player is not happy in teh fellowship they are in, they will choose what they want to do. I am betting stealing other members has been going on through out the game. Some in here may have been guilty of that tactit and are trying to make Marilyn the bad guy for bringing up the topic. My two cents.

I think many are not listening to the majority of players that have commented on this thread....You Can Not Steal A Player! If a player is "happy" they will not leave their FS no matter what the extra prizes will be. Players leave because they are "not happy" where they are, for what ever reason.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Tried that already only to have them all pull out with their Archmage after they all recouped and gained a higher level.. left me and few of my teammates hanging. Sucks when people have their own agenda

I would suggest you figure out how to get your FS full of players ASAP! When people go "looking" they look at FSs that aren't full or have inactive players, so your FS is a prime target right now. The next thing I would suggest is having a FS where all members' opinions are valued, that will help you "keep" your players. The next thing I would suggest is to get to a point where you are 10 chest/Gold Spire as fast as you can, that will help you keep players and recruit players when needed to keep your FS full. Also don't keep inactive players in your FS, players will not want to join if you have inactives in your FS, it makes players feel like the AM has poor leadership skills. Have everyone in your FS scour their neighborhood to recruit members. Have every member put the word recruit in their city name. Advertise on the forum and FB Groups. Go to the FS rank list and look for FSs that only have a few members and invite all of them to join. Go to the Player rank list and look for players that aren't in a FS but are still active according to Elvenstats. And don't stop until you are full and no longer look like an easy target.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

I understand that it is upsetting when your fellows leave but from fellows point of view there is no harm. I personally see poaching messages as a compliment and I like to retain my freedom to receive any message I want. If the messages upset me then I want to decide whether to block them or not. I also know how hard it is to find a good fellowship so I wouldn't easily leave if I like where I am.

I think it would be good to talk to your fellows and ask them what do they want from your fellowship. Also, it's good to make your fellowship description clear about what players can expect. It doesn't work well to mix players with different playing styles as none of them get what they want.

 

[Wynfara]

Many of you seem to be missing the point here. A fellowship does not have to be gold spire/ten chests to be a good fellowship. That's not the kind of FS that a player looking for is a no-pressure FS needs. An overview that says "no" or "low" pressure doesn't negate the implied pressure put on members to go all the way up the spire and/or get ten chests or more - and no, pressure is not apparent when the overview says "no pressure". Three people from my FS were recruited by the same AM ... two of them left and I didn't. Even though I politely responded that I was happy where I was, he kept pressuring me to switch. No "don't solicit" is going to stop people like that. People who are "happy" can, indeed, be poached if they think the grass is greener. A cohesive FS is much more important to me than a full FS; however, that's really not obvious from my elvenstats. I also find it much more rewarding to help new players than trying to keep up with high level players, an insidious type of pressure in itself. People who enjoy that have no reason to change from it any more than people who don't enjoy it should be persuaded to jump to it. People have different ways of playing the game, which should be respected.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Many of you seem to be missing the point here. A fellowship does not have to be gold spire/ten chests to be a good fellowship. That's not the kind of FS that a player looking for is a no-pressure FS needs. An overview that says "no" or "low" pressure doesn't negate the implied pressure put on members to go all the way up the spire and/or get ten chests or more - and no, pressure is not apparent when the overview says "no pressure". Three people from my FS were recruited by the same AM ... two of them left and I didn't. Even though I politely responded that I was happy where I was, he kept pressuring me to switch. No "don't solicit" is going to stop people like that. People who are "happy" can, indeed, be poached if they think the grass is greener. A cohesive FS is much more important to me than a full FS; however, that's really not obvious from my elvenstats. I also find it much more rewarding to help new players than trying to keep up with high level players, an insidious type of pressure in itself. People who enjoy that have no reason to change from it any more than people who don't enjoy it should be persuaded to jump to it. People have different ways of playing the game, which should be respected.

If you said no then the messaging should have stopped and if it didn't you should have blocked that player from messaging you...repeatedly asking is not ok and is borderline harassment.

 

[elvenbee]

It was the first thing that came to my mind..

It came to your mind, but why didn't you message them? You said in another comment -

Yes, exactly.. some of my teammates get constant emails and it becomes annoying. Thank you

If it's annoying to your teammates, why is no one reaching out to support? Open tickets and inform support of the harassment. If the same person/FS is messaging the same person over and over again, that is harassment and no player should have to deal with that.

 

[Alram]

It came to your mind, but why didn't you message them? You said in another comment -

If it's annoying to your teammates, why is no one reaching out to support? Open tickets and inform support of the harassment. If the same person/FS is messaging the same person over and over again, that is harassment and no player should have to deal with that.

If they click on the player picture in the message, the report button comes up and the player goes on the "ignore" list.

 

[Mrietha]

I have been approached several times to leave my Felllowship. Would I lke to earn more diamonds, blueprints, Fellowship awards ... most defintely!. But I don't want to put in the kind of work that being in a Fellowship like that takes. If you take a quick look at my stats they proprably look good. I drop in 2 or 3 times a day, collect what is ready, and leave. But if you looked really close you would see that I have been on the same Chapter for at least 3 to 4 months, I will take a week or more off if my real life is too stressed. I like a slow game and the only pressure is what I put on myself. My current Fellowship doesn't care. We each play as much or as little as we want and we are happy with that.

 

[Dew Spinner]

I have been approached several times to leave my Felllowship. Would I lke to earn more diamonds, blueprints, Fellowship awards ... most defintely!. But I don't want to put in the kind of work that being in a Fellowship like that takes. If you take a quick look at my stats they proprably look good. I drop in 2 or 3 times a day, collect what is ready, and leave. But if you looked really close you would see that I have been on the same Chapter for at least 3 to 4 months, I will take a week or more off if my real life is too stressed. I like a slow game and the only pressure is what I put on myself. My current Fellowship doesn't care. We each play as much or as little as we want and we are happy with that.

You are the perfect example of "you can not steal a player", if a player is happy with a FS they will not leave!

 

[defiantoneks]

wow. lots to go through. my brief comments are:

file a suggestion in the appropriate area to allow members to provide a recruitment status checkbox, message, etc as you feel appropriate. (note, I'm sure it's been mentioned before in a suggestion or as an alternative to someone's "ban this" idea, but hey…)

i agree with others: it is not your decision nor Inno's that FS members should not receive communication outside the FS. if you want to add that as a checkbox to the above, go for it. but it should be up to each member.

invitations to join other FS are not necessarily disrespectful or malicious. some AMs do a lot of research filling their empty spots, and finding people who seem out of place in an existing FS may be invited because it is seen as a win-win invite to the player and the potential new FS. now, that person has a right to say no thanks of course. if they had the above status checks, it would allow them to prevent or receive only selected messages from outside the FS. such limitations would require some coding and likely create more issues (esp when a person does move…)

overall… my thought is: it's spam. if you dont ask for it, ignore or reply no thanks. it's not worth freaking out over.

 

[free-spirit]

I'm the #2 ranked player in the #2 ranked FS in Felyndral. That hasn't stopped the #1 FS from trying to recruit at least half of our Fellowship, including me. It happens. We joke about it, but the reality is, if our members aren't happy and choose to be "poached" then we're not the right fit for them.

So, so many players are sitting in half-dead fellowships and just aren't aware of it. If inviting those players to leave and join a new Fellowship was banned, they may never have the chance to learn what it's like to be part of an active functioning Fellowship. Those are the players that leave the game.

In the end, it is the responsibility of the Archmage to make sure their fellows are not poachable and no one else's.

 

[Darielle]

I honestly think that private email solicitation of players that are already in an existing fellowship should not be accepted and any player that does this should be banned. It is not only disruptive to the team but disrespectful and annoying. Specially when it's an Ambassador or Archmage that is doing the soliciting by way of flattery and deception. If a player wishes to leave and look for a different fellowship by their own accord then that should be respected but for someone else knowing that the player is in an active fellowship and still seeking to disrupt that fellowship with such a deceptive and sneaky act should be banned from the game. It takes a lot of hard work and hours of dedication in a fellowship to to become a family and team that is helping each other push forward and grow. So many events that the team prepares for to be able to make a fellowship function properly. No one needs the annoyance of others coming in with deception to disruptive all the hard work the team has put in. Not Acceptable.

An archmage doesn't have a right to put blinders on their members and make sure they never see offers from better fellowships. They don't own their players. Players are free to come and go as they choose. They are also free to receive messages and send messages from anyone. If they don't wish to receive a message, they can ignore it. Most of the time, fellowship solicitations are obvious in the title of the message. They can simply click that little "x" and delete it without any hassle at all. Problem solved.

What an archmage should do if they are losing players to these messages, is to build a better fellowship! If you don't know how, then ask other archmages here; we will be happy to give you some tips.

Players who are happy CANNOT be poached. No archmage has a right to keep unhappy players in your fellowship. Those players will eventually leave anyway, so your job as an archmage, is to build a team of happy players who want to be there.

Now, if a player is getting multiple requests from the same fellowship, they may get annoyed by that. They could always "report" the message and say they are being harrassed with too many messages from the same source. Inno may ban them from contacting that player again. But I suspect you mind these offers a whole lot more than the players do.

That said, there are some awful fellowships out there. "Rescuing" players from a seriously bad fellowship is not a bad thing. I have one player who tells me all the time that he would have left Elvenar by now if I hadn't rescued him. He thanks me at least once a month. He just never knew what a "good" fellowship was until he came to mine... and yes, I rescued him from a terrible fellowship. I never "poach" players from good fellowships ... never. If you have a good fellowship, your players are safe from me. But if you have a bad fellowship, where half your players have black triangles next to their names on Elvenstats, and if you have one player who is doing 2K in the tourney and your group is averaging 3 chests, then heck yeah, I'm going to rescue that player. I'm not going to let Elvenar lose a good player because a bad archmage is too lazy or clueless to do their job. (Note I am NOT saying that about you ... I'm just saying that in general.)

The bottom line is ... no one owns players. Not the fellowship .... and not the one who is trying to recruit.

 

[Darielle]

Yup, just like everyone who is "poaching" is fighting for their little guys.

Edited to remove unneeded blah blah blah

Amen

 

[Darielle]

If I Imay interject here, have you tried to send the AM of the offending FS that is trying to poach a Message asking them/their players to stop?

I think it would be effective if the player getting the solicitations contacted the AM of that fellowship to ask them to get their players to stop contacting them. If I were an AM and got a message from a player who was being harrassed by my team, I'd certainly put a stop to it. Not that my team would ever do that. No one would think of contacting a person more than once, unless that person were to say, "Right now is not a good time, but next month I might want to do that ... (or something similar).

We would also never ask more than one member of a fellowship to join (unless the archmage was AWOL, according to Elvenstats.) I don't want to hollow out a fellowship no matter how bad it is, as long as the AM is active. But rescuing overachievers from dismal fellowships is something that helps both the player and my team. More importantly, when I recruit, I tell people that if they'd rather stay in their fellowship, I'll be happy to offer advice on how to revitalize their fellowship. I've actually made a friend out of one archmage when she asked me why I contacted her player and I told her why. She had no idea that she was a target because of all those black triangles. I also gave her tips on rewriting her overview, recruiting on the forum, a good ad that would attract people, coming up with a longterm plan for the fellowship, etc.. We are actually friends now after I met her while recruiting in her fellowship, lol. It doesn't always have to end badly ... I've learned that you can make friends in any situation here in Elvenar, if both people have a good attitude and don't jump to conclusions (or immediately rush to want to ban someone.)

 

[Darielle]

I think many are NOT listening to what Marilyn is saying. All she is saying it is disrespectful to try to steal another fellowship member to join yours. She also said you can advertise your fellowship where it is set-up in Elevenar. If a player is not happy in teh fellowship they are in, they will choose what they want to do. I am betting stealing other members has been going on through out the game. Some in here may have been guilty of that tactit and are trying to make Marilyn the bad guy for bringing up the topic. My two cents.

You can't "steal" something from an archmage who doesn't "own" it in the first place. No player is a slave to their fellowship, or their fellowship's personal property. An archmage has a duty to work their butt off to make their fellowship perform to the level that his or her players deserve. Of course, you can have a casual, no-work fellowship if you like. I'm not saying you can't. But if that's all you want, then you have to accept the fact that when players get really good, they are going to leave you behind. If you want to keep advanced players in your fellowship, then you have to have an advanced fellowship ... and that takes a lot of work. If that's too much work for you, then don't complain when your NON-PROPERTY, free agent fellowship member chooses to accept another polite invitation from a fellowship that suits their level better.

 

[Darielle]

and that anybody poaching isn't exactly going by the community attitude and you have to wonder what other things they do independent or contrary to the community standards (which, may be wrong or not but aren't usually harmful and best observed).

AJ

I respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree. There is no "community attitude" against sending a friendly message to a player that is clearly overperforming in his fellowship, or where the fellowship is clearly dismal. To make a blanket statement that all messages of the type are going against the "community attitude" is just wrong. And to insinuate that they do something even more sinister or "contrary to the community standards" is just egregeous. When I have a player thanking me every single month, telling me that they would have left Elvenar by now if I hadn't "rescued" them and made them see what a good fellowship is, then I know I've done right not only by my team but by that player (who by the way, is skyrocketing!) If that former archmage would have cared about that player as much as I do, she would not have let him bear all the weight of the tournament on his shoulders, and get so unhappy to where I had to rescue him. I consider my actions for the good of Elvenar, not something "contrary to community standards."

 

[Darielle]

If you said no then the messaging should have stopped and if it didn't you should have blocked that player from messaging you...repeatedly asking is not ok and is borderline harassment.

Absolutely. No one should ever be solicited twice by the same person after giving a "no" answer. That's what the button (the one with the exclamation point) is for, to make sure people aren't harassed in chat. It's easy to press. Once reported, people will probably never contact you again.

 

[defiantoneks]

I'm the #2 ranked player in the #2 ranked FS in Felyndral. That hasn't stopped the #1 FS from trying to recruit at least half of our Fellowship, including me. It happens. We joke about it, but the reality is, if our members aren't happy and choose to be "poached" then we're not the right fit for them.

the recruitment attempts probably make ya'll go "hey we must be getting close, lets get em!"

 

[free-spirit]

the recruitment attempts probably make ya'll go "hey we must be getting close, lets get em!"

We're not even trying to get close. We have some very small players, and we have no interest in replacing them with high-ranked players. We're high-ranked because many of us have been together for years, so we have a lot of mature cities. But we love our little cities just as much.

 

[Darielle]

I'm the #2 ranked player in the #2 ranked FS in Felyndral. That hasn't stopped the #1 FS from trying to recruit at least half of our Fellowship, including me. It happens. We joke about it, but the reality is, if our members aren't happy and choose to be "poached" then we're not the right fit for them.

So, so many players are sitting in half-dead fellowships and just aren't aware of it. If inviting those players to leave and join a new Fellowship was banned, they may never have the chance to learn what it's like to be part of an active functioning Fellowship. Those are the players that leave the game.

In the end, it is the responsibility of the Archmage to make sure their fellows are not poachable and no one else's.

Perfectly said. I'm the archmage of my top 40 group and a couple weeks back, someone tried to recruit me, lol. I just thanked them and said, nope ... simple.