Kindred (dictionary definition):
noun
1. A group of close or related persons, as a clan or tribe.
2. People who share similar or common qualities, beliefs, attitudes or traits with one another.
adjective
1. Similar in kind, having similar or common qualities, origin, nature, character etc.
2. Kindred spirit: a person with whom one has something in common.



***** Mission Statement / Philosophy *****

The Kindred is an open-concept guild.

We are not elitist and nor are we exclusionary.

Our main focus is to provide players with a good atmosphere in which to enjoy the game. We cooperate and grow together as a close group of kindred friends.

We value all of our members and treat everyone as an equal. – We freely and openly promote all members to Officers. We encourage all of our Officers to get involved, recruit/accept invitations from other players who share our values, kick inactive members, and generally share responsibility for the guild... We aim to empower a sense of feeling like this is 'your' guild.

We are not a guild that is 'owned' or led by any person, but belongs to all of us. I, Andaho, do not claim ‘ownership’ of The Kindred. We share the leadership between our most long-standing active players, as a way to actively show that we are not a guild that is 'owned' or led by any particular person - The Kindred belongs to all of it's members.

I personally operate in complete transparency, have no secrets and believe in openness. – Hence the purpose of this thread, sharing our guild news with the rest of the world!

Our core members are some of the most active players in the game. A guild is only as good as its members. - If you sit back and do nothing or say nothing you will indeed feel left out. - A good community is built on trust, a mature social attitude and being generous.

If you believe that you are better than others because of your rank or are a person who imagines that elitism is the way to be, you may not like it here. The Kindred is a community aimed at civility, friendship and a calm and relaxed manner of game-play. If you have no sense of humour or are a puritan - you may not like it here either.

^^ Don't confuse that above statement to think that we are not competitive players though.

Inflexibility and egoism are the failure of all groups. Let yours go and you will have a great time with us - Level up! Gear up! Group up and move as ONE – The Kindred!



***** Guidelines ***** (Not rules!)

We don't believe in settings rules, but a philosophy of flexible guidelines.

1. As a member of The Kindred, you are expected to be respectful to all players, to answer questions and be helpful whenever possible. Please also be aware that children may be reading the chat at any time, so it's best to keep your chat 'PG-13'.

2. If you are away from the game for longer than a couple weeks, you may get kicked due to inactivity without any warning. - If this happens to you, but you later come back to the game, please do not let this put you off re-joining.

3. Be awesome! ;)



***** Organisation of our Ranks *****

When a new player joins that you/we don't know very well, we should keep them as a recruit until any of us are able to recognise them as being an active player - then we should promote them to Officer. Any Officer can promote them (but an officer cannot demote or kick a fellow officer).

When an Officer appears to be inactive (after not logging on for one or two weeks), the leader should demote them to "Member" status, as a way of marking them as inactive. This will allow any officers to be able to kick them to make room for others. - When doing this, please favour kicking those who have not been online for the longest period and those who have not donated much... Please do not be scared to take the responsibility of kicking someone inactive to make room for someone new (if they come back, we welcome them to re-join the guild).



***** Recruitment *****

There are no requirements to join, other than being actively playing the game and share our values as above.

We are usually full (80/80 members), but when a player is inactive for over two weeks, they are at risk of being kicked to make space for players that are currently actively playing the game.

If you'd like to join us, we usually have a handful of these 'inactive' players that can be kicked to make space for you. Inactive players that get kicked are very welcome to re-join if they start playing the game again.

If you’d like to join, please talk to any Kindred members in the world chat. Alternatively, reply on this forum thread and let us know your in-game name - one of us will add you as a friend in order to open a 'private chat' to sort out your joining :)



***** Guild News *****

31 Jan 2015

Added a new heading describing our organisation of ranks. The Kindred philosophy has had some updating and re-wording. One of the largest changes was removal of our redundant 'guideline' of not attacking a fellow guild member at #1 in the arena (reasons for it's removal are found in near the bottom of pages 2 of this thread).



16 Dec 2014

We have hit full capacity (80/80 members) and have changed our recruitment status (as above).



15 Dec 2014

With the burst of growth in The Kindred during the last week, Elharith has sped-up the guild building cooldowns (using shardium). We can now all benefit from the highest level guild buildings in the game! A BIG thank you to Elharith! :)

Guild: Level 10
Casino: Level 5
Guild Store: Level 10
Skill Tower: Level 10



11 Dec 2014

The Kindred has been growing at a good rate since we started actively recruiting. As of today, we have about 50 active members, more than 25 million guild wealth and our buildings look like this:


Guild: Level 7
Casino: Level 5
Guild Store: Level 7
Skill Tower: Level 7

The leader of the guild is the only person who can spend guild wealth on upgrading the guild buildings. I prefer to think of myself as the 'designated builder' :P Please remember that as the levels get higher, the building cooldowns get much larger (days/weeks rather than hours).



27 Nov 2014 – (Updated information 5 Dec)

We are in the very early stages of growing the guild (we are only just starting to actively recruit new members as of today [27 Nov 2014], hence this brand new forum thread!). However, we currently have 29 members, our guild wealth is over 10 million gold, and our guild buildings look like this:

Guild: Level 6
Casino: Level 5
Guild Store: Level 6
Skill Tower: Level 6



*****

Please use this forum thread for any discussions related to The Kindred.

Here is a shortened direct link to this thread: http://bit.ly/the_kindred

Andy.

That's a neat rule to have. I approve! Just don't hog #1!

Come join our guild! Shoot me, Guinevere, a friend request, or ask me to accept your application if you see me in World Chat.

I'm starting to believe in the theory that item drops/rewards are based on the items you are currently wearing.

I've been using a necklace with a base 934 HP for a long time now... and I see several other players with necklaces +1300>... I've rarely seen necklaces drop that are over 1000 HP and never seen one that has over 1200... but that's possibly because the one I'm wearing is only a base of 934.

The reason I'm starting to believe in this theory is after buying the Epic boots from Hall of Trials...

Previously, I'd never seen boots with more than +18 speed. But today, the first day having bought the epic boots (+37 speed), I have found green boots with +22 speed... It seems too much of a coincidence that I've only found boots with higher speed after I am wearing these epic ones.

From a design point-of-view, it would make sense, to restrict players from randomly/instantly getting a maxed out item... if what you find it's based on what you are already wearing, it produces a much more gradual curve to character development.

Has anyone else had similar experiences?

A quick update:

The guild is now at level 7 with Guild Store newly upgraded to level 7. - This now allows purchase of Endurance potion level 3.

Also, following up on my theory about items (a couple posts above); I have since found several necklaces that have >1200 HP, including a few above 1300... so the theory is appearing to be correct.

Did they change it or something? I thought we could demote for awhile now and only someone of a lower rank then yourself.

QUICK UPDATE:

The demote button errors have now been fixed, and everyone has been made an officer again.

And thanks for answering Tsu's question, Aly :)

Man, how much shardium did you guys use?

In addition to the news Andaho posted above, there is now a sister guild to The Kindred, called The Kindred Alts. Some of our active players in The Kindred (myself included) have alternative characters we play, and these are in The Kindred Alts guild. In addition, we have some new members to The Kindred Alts who were looking for an active guild. The Kindred Alts follows the same guild contract as The Kindred.

Treating everyone as equals and showing mutual respect is at the core of The Kindred. - We don't want anyone to feel left out. The Kindred was initially founded with having ALL members instantly promoted to Officer. But as we grow, I am calling into question if that is still going to serve us best... If only for the reason of easily identifying the most active members.

First, a few notes about what officers can do: The main purpose of an officer, is that it allows them to accept applications/send invites to the guild (that's not so useful now that we are full). Officers can promote recruits to members, and members to officers. Officers can kick recruits and members from the guild, but cannot kick or demote fellow officers.

The Kindred want all of it's members to feel that they are part of our active community, and that their opinion matters and their voice can always be heard.

By having all members as officers, it conveniently eliminated the need for any trust - as nobody can kick anybody else (apart from the leader).

I would still like to have the majority of our guild as officers, not so much for the 'power' that an officer has, but for the respect and trust shown for holding that rank.

The potential problem of having so many officers, is that a lesser known officer might go rogue and decide to kick a member (or potentially, all members) without first discussing it with anyone else. - This is where the trust and mutual respect come in. On the other hand, if the majority of The Kindred are officers, then it's only the less-active members that could be kicked by the hypothetical rogue.

With the heavy influx of new players, as a result of the game becoming featured on the kongregate homepage, we recruited a lot of new members (specifically, most of the recruiting work done by Elharith - thank you!)... It is inevitable that some of these players might have decided the game is not for them, and stop playing... With 80 members, it's hard for everyone to easily identify who the other most active members are... That could easily be achieved with recognising them, by promoting them to officer. - And also remember, other officers can promote other members to officer - so we would expect officers to take it upon themselves to promote members that they identify as being very active in the game.

With an open mind, and bearing in mind all of the concerns I have raised above, I'd like to hear the opinion of other Kindred members that want to help with this decision, and put a policy in place.

*****

I was initially going to post this discussion in a private place, but then thought... why? - so it might as well go here :) If you have anything you would like to discuss in private, we can chat in-game.

PS - My ingame character is Danger.