[Implemented] Mass Messaging Guild Members

[Spastic]

It would be easier to communicate with all guild members of all guild sizes if there was a mass message button which would, surprise surprise, mass message everyone in the guild. There is already the announcements feature which allows guild to communicate to the entire guild.

The announcements allows the guild leader(s) to display messages to the entire guild at one place.

The problems with the announcements
- If you put all the messages you want your guild to see, the page will become crowded with messages and some will become lost within the page.
- Not everyone reads the announcements daily
- A lot of people just read it for the voodoo partners
- Everyone doesn't see the important messages that applies then and there

What Captain Da Vinci said
Captain: we have (semi-) permanent messages in announcements
Captain: we need a system to pass "right now" messages to all members

We, in ATC, feel that the announcements don't reach everyone in the guild.

I'm guess that someone would say to use the guild forums, but the way they are organised now its just going to get lost and like I said before, about the announcements, not everyone reads them. Same thing applies to the discussion.

[Black sparrow]

Or a log of announcements so people can track previous/new announcements? Mass message sounds good too. Either will work.

[Spastic]

Many players only read forums that interest them and many dont even read the discussion. It cant get frustrating at time when you post tons of messages in the discussion and 2 days later some one dont know anything about it. Now more than every i want this added. Im posting this message because it seems like the devs didnt intend to do anything about it when i first posted

[Captain Jack]

The problem is that guild mass messages can result in the same way; people will just start ignoring them too.

If you really want your messages to deliver, you need to utilize guild announcements in the best way possible. I suggest the following:

1.Keep them short
2.Utilize forum links (ie don't write your present list in announcements, write it in discussion boards and then put the link to the announcement page)
3.Try to control the frequency; too many announcements will reduce interest.

If you still think they are necessary, we will consider adding mass messages. However it can be added in a predefined limit way only (ie 1 mass message per 8 hours).

I would like the opinions on the matter from more people involved with guild administration (officers).

[Roileon]

Or a log of announcements so people can track previous/new announcements? Mass message sounds good too. Either will work.

I think that sending guild announcements is the exact same thing as sending mass messages to your guild so it might not be as necessary as Capt. Jack said, but, the idea of being able to see previous announcements sound like a great idea, and maybe that could be implemented if possible. I always find it useful to go back to old announcements and I'm sure some others might as well.

[Spastic]

ive played games with a similar system to the announcements feature and a mass mail feature. Mass mailing was used in these games to quick information about what is going on then, it was also used to for organisational things. The announcements were used as a source of information that the guild/faction could read about their guild.

instead of sending a letter to everyone and event could be sent with a limited amount of characters. Also being able to send the same message to multiple people in your guild would be helpful.

personally i would use mass mail occasionally to send vital information that many people may miss in the forums. But i dont think it should be limited. It should be up to the guild to use it properly but that being said there could be a 'cool down' period if too many mass mails are sent in a certain space of time.

[Edward_Teach]

Or you at where it says to type in the player id number they could allow you to add another, so you can chose whom to send it to.

[Captain Jack]

OK, we will do it.

[Cdv]

I think we could incorporate this feature into the memberlist page rather than the inbox page. Currently, the only thing you can do under the Actions column is to kick out members. You could replace these with check boxes and have an option below to choose all, similar to the List Trade routes page. You can then have certain actions that you can do with the selected members - Mail them or Kick them(more actions can be added in the future).

The mass mailing feature is not meant to be used for spamming members many times a day. It is meant to pass info to more than one person at a time so that you don't have to retype or copy paste everything. Guildmasters may want to mail all officers or mail to certain groups of people. It is also useful during times of war or emergencies so I agree with Spastic that there shouldn't be a limit. However, access to this feature should be limited to the guildmaster and members with permissions so as to avoid unnecessary spamming.

[Captain Jack]

Implemented

The feature is available through the guild memberlist. The ability is available only to members with sufficient permissions.

Specifically, anyone able to edit the guild announcements and guild description can now also mass mail the members. Memberlist visibility is also required.

Mass mail is selective, which means that you can message from 1 to all members of the guild as you define.

We are sceptical as to whether to expand this feature beyond guilds as we are worried about spam.