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    Your Elvenar Team

Poaching of players should be banned

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Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
I hate to rain on your parade, but if those archmages in charge of MOST of the fellowships that are being invited would take the time to actually invest in their players instead of just starting a fellowship and sitting back to do nothing, perhaps they would be more likely to stay. It's well known that I recruit from "dead" fellowships. Dead fellowships are ones that are not progressing, full of inactive players, or otherwise look as if they are not taking care of their players. "Bothering them" is a relative term. Anyone has the option of deleting messages or simply not responding if they are not interested. On the whole, there are few high achievers who are independent players. Those you notice on the leader boards, mostly play rarely or not at all anymore.
I have never lied to someone I wanted to recruit, it serves no purpose in the long run and will work against the liar.
Perhaps you should look at your fellowship and what you are offering them to stay. Do you send tips and tricks for tourney weekly? Do you keep them updated on changes to the game as they come out? Do you keep them notified of upcoming events and how to prepare? Do you forward links to documents that will be helpful in those events? Do you actually talk to them, or even notice if they are struggling in the game?
I have plenty of ethics, along with the vast majority of those here on the forum.

I have had players leave my fellowship because they wanted to be more aggressive players than my fellowship is as a whole. I would never hold them back from meeting their needs. I have built a fellowship that communicate and helps each other. It has taken many hours of searching, recruiting, and communication to build it. If you would like to learn how to do it, I would be happy to coach you.
This is exactly it! Too many players want to be an Archmage with no leadership skills, they just want the title. Then they are mad when their players leave for a better run FS! That's why there are waaay too many FSs and not enough players to fill them.
 

Glenndar

Member
I've had people try to poach my players. They tell me and we just laugh. People leave if they want to leave and there's nothing you can do about it. I find, most of my players leave because they want gold Spire and 10 chests in every tournie, which I can't offer them right now. It's sad but I too would love to join a gold Spire, 10 chest Fellowship, except I'm archmage. lol.

People can't poach anyone who is happy in your fellowship and sometimes, it's not that they are unhappy, they just think another Fellowship has the same goals as they do when playing the game. Don't take it personally. If you take it personally, you'll get angry and then you'll act out of anger, either at your Fellowship members or the other Fellowship and that isn't good. It will create too much tension in your Fellowship which will drive even more people away.

There's a lot of good advice here on being a good archmage. That's a good place to start. Look at your leadership skills, not at the people "poaching" your members.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
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.
You never actually specified what "lies" or "deception" the other archmage used ... so I'd be curious as to what kinds of lies you are talking about. Did they guarantee them higher chest numbers than they can reasonably get (with that player added) in the tourney? Did they tell lies about you? (Such as, "I heard your archmage was planning on disbanding the fellowship, so you should come to us before that happens.")

Please clarify the lies. Either of the above sample lies would be egregious, and we could sympathize if that's what you experienced. Right now, you really don't have sympathy here because you haven't explained fully.
 

FairyInBellbottoms

Shroom Aficionado
I've had people try to poach my players. They tell me and we just laugh. People leave if they want to leave and there's nothing you can do about it. I find, most of my players leave because they want gold Spire and 10 chests in every tournie, which I can't offer them right now. It's sad but I too would love to join a gold Spire, 10 chest Fellowship, except I'm archmage. lol.

People can't poach anyone who is happy in your fellowship and sometimes, it's not that they are unhappy, they just think another Fellowship has the same goals as they do when playing the game. Don't take it personally. If you take it personally, you'll get angry and then you'll act out of anger, either at your Fellowship members or the other Fellowship and that isn't good. It will create too much tension in your Fellowship which will drive even more people away.

There's a lot of good advice here on being a good archmage. That's a good place to start. Look at your leadership skills, not at the people "poaching" your members.
WoW well said Glenndar! You are very wise.
 

Deleted User - 849411552

Guest
While I do not think that banning is the answer, personally I feel that this game is about cooperation. Well, at least that is why I play.

For me, poaching from other fellowships does not go along with my cooperative vision for the game. Other people feel differently, and I trust that would also reflect their vision for the game.

Our fellowship is in the top 30 and we have made it a policy that we will not poach from other active fellowships. That has actually been an attractive feature for some people who are looking for a new fellowship, and for people staying in our fellowship. They just don't want the drama.

Retention is not an issue for us, we are down two players at the moment, but that is about as low as it goes. The most typical reason that we lose players is that they are retiring from the game, not moving on to where the grass may seem greener. We also have folks coming back to us from time to time when they find the grass was a little too green!

Two of our members recently left to join the top FA fellowship on our server. Although we have always finished in the top ten in the FA, scoring 2nd twice and 3rd at least once, I appreciate that some folks would like a more tangible reward for all the hard work they put in to the FA - and I recognize that our fellowship does not have or want that kind of focus. So that is a good thing that these folks left, although indeed we will miss them.

In any event, I really enjoy Elvenar for its cooperative aspect, and its the best online game I have ever found.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
While I do not think that banning is the answer, personally I feel that this game is about cooperation. Well, at least that is why I play.

For me, poaching from other fellowships does not go along with my cooperative vision for the game. Other people feel differently, and I trust that would also reflect their vision for the game.

Our fellowship is in the top 30 and we have made it a policy that we will not poach from other active fellowships. That has actually been an attractive feature for some people who are looking for a new fellowship, and for people staying in our fellowship. They just don't want the drama.

Retention is not an issue for us, we are down two players at the moment, but that is about as low as it goes. The most typical reason that we lose players is that they are retiring from the game, not moving on to where the grass may seem greener. We also have folks coming back to us from time to time when they find the grass was a little too green!

Two of our members recently left to join the top FA fellowship on our server. Although we have always finished in the top ten in the FA, scoring 2nd twice and 3rd at least once, I appreciate that some folks would like a more tangible reward for all the hard work they put in to the FA - and I recognize that our fellowship does not have or want that kind of focus. So that is a good thing that these folks left, although indeed we will miss them.

In any event, I really enjoy Elvenar for its cooperative aspect, and its the best online game I have ever found.
The key word in your post is "active" fellowships. I think all of the archmages here feel exactly the same way you do and would never "poach" from "active" fellowships. But active may mean different things to different people. To me, "active" means a fellowship where the archmage is trying his or her best to create a good atmosphere and help the players to thrive and gain the rewards that they deserve.

I think we can all agree that this game is about cooperation. If an archmage is not actively cooperating to help their players, then the spirit of the game is not being met. A case in point is one of my current players. He had been playing in one fellowship (the one he started with) for 2 years, and had gotten to about 50K. He was one of only 3 players playing the tourney and together they were getting around 3 chests a week. The archmage was barely active ... over the course of six months she had earned a black triangle twice, but bounced back from it. She didn't play the tourney, and from what I was later told by a different player, didn't actively pick up players' trades. In other words, she came in when she felt like it, stayed away when she felt like it, and earned three chests a week based on her active players' work, not hers.

In the six months since he came to my fellowship (I invited him to find out what a good fellowship looked like, and he accepted), he's now about 140K and earning 12 or 13 chests a week. This week, he's at the top of the spire and will earn the gold rewards. He told me that if I hadn't invited him, he was actually thinking about leaving the game and would have done it by now. He just didn't realize that there is such a huge difference between fellowships. He loves Elvenar now. I gained, the player gained, the Elvenar game as a whole gained, and since the player left that fellowship, the archmage hasn't even bothered to recruit for his spot. Nothin. ... so I guess that fellowship is too far gone to have really lost anything. So, just win win and no loss.

A fellowship is only as good as its archmage. (Not saying the players can't be better than the fellowship, but the fellowship as a whole is not healthy if the archmage is bad). A bad fellowship is not living up to the spirit of Elvenar, one of cooperation and helpfulness to one another. Therefore, recruit all you want from fellowships where there is a very clear pattern of dysfunction. But in the spirit of cooperation, never poach from a thriving fellowship, no matter how much you like a player within it. That's my modus operandi, anyway.
 

Deleted User - 849411552

Guest
The key word in your post is "active" fellowships. I think all of the archmages here feel exactly the same way you do and would never "poach" from "active" fellowships. But active may mean different things to different people. To me, "active" means a fellowship where the archmage is trying his or her best to create a good atmosphere and help the players to thrive and gain the rewards that they deserve.
[SNIP]
A fellowship is only as good as its archmage. (Not saying the players can't be better than the fellowship, but the fellowship as a whole is not healthy if the archmage is bad). A bad fellowship is not living up to the spirit of Elvenar, one of cooperation and helpfulness to one another. Therefore, recruit all you want from fellowships where there is a very clear pattern of dysfunction. But in the spirit of cooperation, never poach from a thriving fellowship, no matter how much you like a player within it. That's my modus operandi, anyway.
I think that's a great approach, Darielle! It does sound like you are community building and living up to the spirit of Elvenar - at least as I see it too.

Unfortunately I think the OP was describing that her fellowship is active, although not perfect (whose is?). And unfortunately that seems to be a very common procedure, trying to recruit from active fellowships like hers and ours.

I think their attempts very rarely pay off in our case, but it just seems disrespectful, lazy and I can't help but say "stupid". I mean, we've even had more than one other top fellowship try to recruit our archmage. Really? You can't even bother to check out who you're asking? Is our archmage really so fed up with her own (successful) fellowship she secretly wants to move on?

Speaking for my own case, I wouldn't think of joining a group whose members behaved in a disrespectful way to our fellowship. Likely I would be disrespected too, if I did join them - just a matter of time.

I know that poaching attempts do bother some of our fellowship's players, and someone in the thread suggesting just blocking the offenders. I actually don't know how to do that, all I can see is "Report" them. I suspect a lot of folks would not want to get into that sort of a rigmarole to fix what should be a simple problem. Blocking should be easy - and maybe it is but I don't know the secret.
 

Queen of Snacks

Snack Hoarder
Your signature shows that you not only joined but you are now ArchMage.
I suppose I should have said Founded, yes.

What kind of shady fellowship is the kind which bribes players to come to them with snacks and titles?
We don't bribe our members with snacks. We recruit members who are willing to steal snacks for their Queen, as good worker ants should.
 

Iyapo

Personal Conductor
. I actually don't know how to do that, all I can see is "Report" them. I suspect a lot of folks would not want to get into that sort of a rigmarole to fix what should be a simple problem. Blocking should be easy - and maybe it is but I don't know the secret.
If you click the report button, this screen comes up, put a reason and click send, they go on your ignore list.
Elvenar_2023-03-17-17-57-16.jpg
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
I think that's a great approach, Darielle! It does sound like you are community building and living up to the spirit of Elvenar - at least as I see it too.

Unfortunately I think the OP was describing that her fellowship is active, although not perfect (whose is?). And unfortunately that seems to be a very common procedure, trying to recruit from active fellowships like hers and ours.

I think their attempts very rarely pay off in our case, but it just seems disrespectful, lazy and I can't help but say "stupid". I mean, we've even had more than one other top fellowship try to recruit our archmage. Really? You can't even bother to check out who you're asking? Is our archmage really so fed up with her own (successful) fellowship she secretly wants to move on?

Speaking for my own case, I wouldn't think of joining a group whose members behaved in a disrespectful way to our fellowship. Likely I would be disrespected too, if I did join them - just a matter of time.

I know that poaching attempts do bother some of our fellowship's players, and someone in the thread suggesting just blocking the offenders. I actually don't know how to do that, all I can see is "Report" them. I suspect a lot of folks would not want to get into that sort of a rigmarole to fix what should be a simple problem. Blocking should be easy - and maybe it is but I don't know the secret.
I agree with you on the OP as well. If she had come on with a different attitude, I think all of us would have sympathized with her. Wanting to get people banned sends up red flags and is never a good way to start an opening post, particularly when the post is so vague as to the specific injury. Recruiting by itself is not a bad thing in general, as she seemed to say, but recruiting from a viable fellowship like hers is not really a good idea and I CAN sympathize with her on that. In her case, I think her fellowship is trying and gaining ground. I personally would never recruit anyone in her fellowship. I looked it up on Elvenstats and it shows as fairly decent ... not the kind where players are crying out to be rescued.

As far as people recruiting your archmage, I am the archmage of a fellowship with every member active, consistently getting 12 chests and gold in spire once a month (silver all the other times, except an occasional extra gold thrown in.) I was recently asked to join a gold spire fellowship by an acquaintance from the forum ... I thought it was funny, actually. I just said no thank you and went on my merry way. But I do have to admit I was surprised. I think the top groups are getting desperate for gold spire or high-level tourney players. Let's face it, the high level groups have a far smaller pool from which to recruit. If you're willing to take on newbies, as we do on occasion, you have a far bigger selection of players from which to recruit. If you are only going for gold spire members, you're going to be desperate. So that gives me some sympathy and understanding for the recruiter, despite my surprise.

In the end, I think it's all good .... you wanna get my best players? Give it your best shot, lol. Anyone who is unhappy with me ... should leave. I want them to go find happiness, with my blessing ... and let me have the open slot so that I can find a player who WILL be happy here. My fellowship isn't for everyone. When I say I'm going to do X, I do it. If I say you need a minimum 1000 points in the tourney, then if a month later you're still getting a couple hundred, I may drop you to get a more active player in. If you cause drama within the fellowship, you're gone. If you don't stick to the rules, you're gone. For example, we have a rule that you can't post zero star trades unless they are for the spire or tourney. If you post crazy trades and say they're for the spire, and then don't go in the spire at all, well, unless it was just an oversight or something happened, you're gone.

But I doubt anyone would leave unless for health, extra job, family problems, and all the normal reasons. I once left this fellowship to go chase gold in spire. It's possible someone might do that someday, and I will certainly encourage them to do it and then come back when they miss us (just as I did). I think most of my players couldn't be swayed to join another fellowship even if you offered free virtual snacks, lol. We have a ton of perks in our fellowship. My people have told me that they've never felt so good about being in a fellowship before. They never had their fellowship anniversary acknowledged with anniversary gifts (kp). They never had their 100K milestones recognized, again with kp milestone gifts. They never had crazy spire parties in which you can get kp for reaching the top as well as kp for silly stuff, like fellowship stories, spire drinking songs, etc. etc. We once had about 80 posts on one week's spire climb story about the whole fellowship going camping in the desert ... one member bringing a magical piano in a pocket, another one meeting up with wild animals that we magically transformed, etc, etc, ... it was a blast. Another spire climb party week we had asci art ... rabbits, fish, bears, etc.

Sure, it costs me a lot of runes, but who cares? It's not like I'm going to build a Tome of Secrets or an Endless Excavation at this stage, lol. And even if I do have to give away other runes, the joy that we feel in our fellowship is absolutely worth it. So yeah, give it your best shot ... I really don't mind. Even if you do succeed in recruiting one of my players, I figure they will always come back when they realize how much they miss us, and the little side trip might even make them happier than they were before. There's nothing like going home and realizing that it IS your home. :) And if they don't miss us? That only means that they were never meant to be here in the first place. I hope they find their home ... I mean that. Everyone should find their very best home, as I have in Thornwood. :)
 

Black watch

Well-Known Member
I've had three people hacked by outside sources that must have thought it fun to ruin a husband and wife's playing. The third player, I know truly loved the game... Sad...
I suddenly have four openings and I'm looking to FS's that might want to merge. I know of two other FS's that are looking too.
15th ranked FS in F-world. I word my offers respectfully and with no pressure. If they decline, then I'm happy to wish them the best and hope they stay in the game. As an AM, you have to ask... asking is not a crime... how you ask maybe the issue. I was brought up to say please and thank you... be respectful... we are all people... period. Let's have fun.

Blackie, Archmage of Tuatha Dé Mór-Ríoghain
 

Deleted User - 849411552

Guest
I agree with you on the OP as well. If she had come on with a different attitude, I think all of us would have sympathized with her. Wanting to get people banned sends up red flags and is never a good way to start an opening post, particularly when the post is so vague as to the specific injury. Recruiting by itself is not a bad thing in general, as she seemed to say, but recruiting from a viable fellowship like hers is not really a good idea and I CAN sympathize with her on that. In her case, I think her fellowship is trying and gaining ground. I personally would never recruit anyone in her fellowship. I looked it up on Elvenstats and it shows as fairly decent ... not the kind where players are crying out to be rescued.

As far as people recruiting your archmage, I am the archmage of a fellowship with every member active, consistently getting 12 chests and gold in spire once a month (silver all the other times, except an occasional extra gold thrown in.) I was recently asked to join a gold spire fellowship by an acquaintance from the forum ... I thought it was funny, actually. I just said no thank you and went on my merry way. But I do have to admit I was surprised. I think the top groups are getting desperate for gold spire or high-level tourney players. Let's face it, the high level groups have a far smaller pool from which to recruit. If you're willing to take on newbies, as we do on occasion, you have a far bigger selection of players from which to recruit. If you are only going for gold spire members, you're going to be desperate. So that gives me some sympathy and understanding for the recruiter, despite my surprise.

In the end, I think it's all good .... you wanna get my best players? Give it your best shot, lol. Anyone who is unhappy with me ... should leave. I want them to go find happiness, with my blessing ... and let me have the open slot so that I can find a player who WILL be happy here. My fellowship isn't for everyone. When I say I'm going to do X, I do it. If I say you need a minimum 1000 points in the tourney, then if a month later you're still getting a couple hundred, I may drop you to get a more active player in. If you cause drama within the fellowship, you're gone. If you don't stick to the rules, you're gone. For example, we have a rule that you can't post zero star trades unless they are for the spire or tourney. If you post crazy trades and say they're for the spire, and then don't go in the spire at all, well, unless it was just an oversight or something happened, you're gone.

But I doubt anyone would leave unless for health, extra job, family problems, and all the normal reasons. I once left this fellowship to go chase gold in spire. It's possible someone might do that someday, and I will certainly encourage them to do it and then come back when they miss us (just as I did). I think most of my players couldn't be swayed to join another fellowship even if you offered free virtual snacks, lol. We have a ton of perks in our fellowship. My people have told me that they've never felt so good about being in a fellowship before. They never had their fellowship anniversary acknowledged with anniversary gifts (kp). They never had their 100K milestones recognized, again with kp milestone gifts. They never had crazy spire parties in which you can get kp for reaching the top as well as kp for silly stuff, like fellowship stories, spire drinking songs, etc. etc. We once had about 80 posts on one week's spire climb story about the whole fellowship going camping in the desert ... one member bringing a magical piano in a pocket, another one meeting up with wild animals that we magically transformed, etc, etc, ... it was a blast. Another spire climb party week we had asci art ... rabbits, fish, bears, etc.

Sure, it costs me a lot of runes, but who cares? It's not like I'm going to build a Tome of Secrets or an Endless Excavation at this stage, lol. And even if I do have to give away other runes, the joy that we feel in our fellowship is absolutely worth it. So yeah, give it your best shot ... I really don't mind. Even if you do succeed in recruiting one of my players, I figure they will always come back when they realize how much they miss us, and the little side trip might even make them happier than they were before. There's nothing like going home and realizing that it IS your home. :) And if they don't miss us? That only means that they were never meant to be here in the first place. I hope they find their home ... I mean that. Everyone should find their very best home, as I have in Thornwood. :)
It sounds like you have a great fellowship! I may steal one or two of your ideas, if I may!

Yes, I do think that some of the top groups get desperate and do desperate things because they perceive their recruiting pool as small. But the way the game works, those Chapter 6 folks can actually score gold spire quite consistently, if so motivated (we recently had such a player). I think its better to put that desperate energy into helping the players you have.

Yes, it is unfortunate that this thread started with a red flag!
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Your signature shows that you not only joined but you are now ArchMage.
I mean, you don't end up with an idea like, let's build a competitive FS around a capitol city of just snack buildings without it being laced with a hint of crack. Therefore, as the co-founder, I can confirm @Queen of Snacks has been our only Archmage. It was always in the original blueprint that nobody can complain or boot the Archmage for having a nonsensical city (that makes so much sense) while being in a competitive FS. So in the chicken or the egg question of which came first, we wouldn't be called The Anthill™ if we didn't have a Queen we're pilfering snacks for (as her signature also shows). It can only be ants with the Queen and (other people's) snack combo. We're pretty sure an all-snack city will be pretty unplayable, but you don't really know for sure until you try and we are curious people that's been playing the game for a long time and keeping ourselves entertained. I've heard of racing cities and diamond farming cities, but nobody's tried building a snack city until now. Most players scout events for what the grand prize building has to offer, but we scout events for potential snack buildings for Queen to acquire. We don't have to bribe anyone because people with a healthy penchant for shenanigans will want front row seats and willing hoard all the popcorn to watch it play out. Other FS have more tourney chests and higher ranking, but we offer shenanigans.

What kind of shady fellowship is the kind which bribes players to come to them with snacks and titles?
The very shady kind where you have to give a different answer when a player's grandkid asks what is crackie short for.

There's a lot of good advice here on being a good archmage. That's a good place to start. Look at your leadership skills, not at the people "poaching" your members.
I can also share really good bad advice about recruiting! I once did a recruiting drive where I flyered ONLY players with snack-themed usernames. Well, it's definitely NOT ideally how you want to go about recruiting for Spire players, sights unseen! But when you make your own FS and nobody else wants to do the recruiting, you can do whatever the heck you want (including avoiding marble boosted players). It's not a recommended strategy, but we did successfully manage to carry a burger up the Spire stairs and convert him into a Spire climber. There was a Keebler elf I really wanted to recruit, but they were in an old FS I was in. I don't recruit from former FS, but if players there come to me on their own, then they were unhappy and want something different!
 

Flashfyre

Well-Known Member
Terminology is important: poaching is an incorrect term for the situation described by the Op and many others. Poaching is the illegal acquisition of game animals, either by hunting in posted areas or without a license to hunt said game animal. Not exactly what's being discussed here...

The term you all should be using is "headhunting", which is an accepted practice in the business world to acquire good talent. Making offers to people gainfully employed at other companies to come work for you is a tried and true method, often combined with "networking". However, there is nothing illegal about it, unless the headhunters persist after being told "No" by prospective hires.
 
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