Thanks for the announcement, @Sir_Stabs – you’ve been a shining example of the kind of people who have thrived in Of Ares and Athena, and who will now continue to help grow Olympia as we embark on this exciting new venture!
I wanted to chime in and share a bit of my story since joining the game and original guild, Of Ares and Athena during the 12 days of Christmas event with giveaways that was going on in December 2017.
At the time, I was under level 100, but had past experience in tile-based puzzle RPG games due to MPQ on mobile. I mentioned this in global chat and while most guilds laughed in my face and told me things like, “go level up,” “let’s see if he’s still here in a week,” or other replies that were much more blunt replies along the lines of “Oh, another noob wanting a guild for all the benefits without any of the work.”
This wasn’t the response from @Asuna_Scarlette, @WyomingPixel, @orgrider, @CanyonSurfer and the other members of Of Ares and Athena, however. They saw something in me that’s extremely rare in the Gems community: a potentially dedicated player who’s honest, loyal, and (frankly–appears to be addicted to the game already)!
I’m now a level 1064 player and became the Guild Data Manager for Of Ares and Athena, compiling weekly membership data, managing the guild roster information, and tracking overall guild trends and progress alongside our leadership. Throughout this process, we developed our own advanced Google Spreadsheets, a kingdom level and power-tracking tool in collaboration with @Taransworld (who’s amazing to work with), and saw our guild grow from 1/3 “end-game players” and 2/3 high-turnover-still-leveling-kingdoms to now completing all guild tasks on Mondays each week, 40k seals by Wednesday/Thursday, and outscoring our opponents by over 1,000,000 points (10x) in GW every cycle.
We went from a guild that was recruiting weekly to having to turn end-game players away or put them on a waitlist because of the commitment we’ve had as a community to continue promoting and supporting all dedicated, active, and progression-focused members of GoW on XB1, even those who were not yet at max kingdom levels.
Our leadership under @Asuna_Scarlette is truly legendary for this game (she’d say it’s always been a team effort–which is true, but she’s remained our foundation), and is highly respected within the XB1 GoW community. The same can be said of the guild she built. To put some concrete numbers out there, here are our guild-wide stats as of 4/23/2018 reset:
Date Guild Created - November 18, 2017
Member Total - 30/30
Guild Level - 246 (+15 from last week!)
Guild Statues: (Completed on Monday!)
- LvL 82 Blue Guardian
- LvL 74 Green Guardian
- LvL 83 Red Guardian
- LvL 76 Yellow Guardian
- LvL 81 Purple Guardian
- LvL 81 Brown Guardian
League - Grandmaster I (300% Daily Login Gold)
Current Trophies - 207,091 (increase of 12,688 in one week!)
Leaderboard Ranking - 67 (up from 73 last week!)
LEVELED UP TO GRANDMASTER I! Thank you all for the hard work and an incredible week!
100% COMPLETION OF GUILD INVASION EVENT BY SATURDAY!
The opportunity presented itself a week ago to solve a couple problems we were facing:
- Guild Wars bracket far below our individual members’ experience and scoring potential and the 3-week cycle implemented in the launch of 3.3 delaying our advancement to a more appropriate bracket.
- A growing waitlist of both end-game players who wanted to be a part of a guild with the culture we’d created and also those who were still leveling kingdoms or only just recently completed leveling kingdoms but were still lacking in troops to make as large a contribution as they’d like to Raid Boss and Invasion events.
Thus, guild leadership discussed options and the decision to create an–at present–two-guild Gems of War Community on XB1.
The result? OLYMPIA !
Comprised of both the original Ares and Athena guild and the newly acquired and renamed guild, Apollo and Artemis; OLYMPIA stresses continual improvement and the role of management and leadership is to model, support, and promote this. The goal is to develop and provide support to the strongest players within the game–with the recognition that these players exist at every stage of the game’s progression.
OLYMPIA maintains a people-based Guild management style. Our success is completely dependent on our members, and we are only as strong as the entire collective: spanning experienced end-game players to enthusiastic players still leveling kingdoms or with real-life time constraints prohibiting full participation in all end-game content.
It is the belief of Olympia Guild Management that all activities are connected and each person should be aware of that link whether it is in the the oldest guild or the newest. Each guild has a responsibility to the other guilds that comprise the Olympia community.
@Sir_Stabs did a great job breaking down the two guilds above, but I wanted to add a bit of my own personal story and what I’ve seen accomplished during my time in the original guild.
Don’t think there isn’t a place for you in truly thriving guilds on XB1; with Olympia, you have a unique opportunity that rarely comes available in Gems - the choice between two guilds with exceptional leadership and peer members you can trust and rely on regardless of where you are in the game. You have a chance to be an original member in what is surely going to become Xbox One’s strongest Community of Guilds.
**Apollo and Artemis ** - Led by @Asuna_Scarlette, and at GW Bracket 18, fully anticipates being in the Top 10 brackets within in three cycles. All 30 members will coordinate resource conservation for completion of weekly events, and full participation in Guild Wars, members without activity and no prior notice will be removed from the guild on No Free Ride Fridays. Communication with leadership has been, and always will be of the utmost importance.
Ares and Athena - Led by @WyomingPixel, a veteran GM from AAA titles including Destiny will be serving as the Guild Master and taking the helm of the 63-ranked Of Ares and Athena guild with its original developmental focus (along with multiple original members who have a slightly more casual play style while still completing max seals and average guild task contributions ranging between 900k-1.7m gold/wk (it’s hard to classify them as casual!) In keeping with the tradition that got us to where we are today, members without activity and no prior notice will be removed from the guild on No Free Ride Fridays. Communication with leadership has been, and always will be of the utmost importance.
WE BELIEVE THAT REAL LIFE COMES FIRST. We are adults, have careers, families, children, school, work, and “IRL” obligations. Members who have to leave for a period of time are always welcomed back with open arms if they left on good terms. We have frequently worked with members through times of illness, family emergencies, or new IRL demands, but communication is expected of our members in both guilds.
Ready to become an INAUGURAL Member of OLYMPIA? Reply here, send a private message through this forum (@WyomingPixel, @D_Houzz), or start a conversation with both of us on XB Live, Gamertags “Wyoming Pixel” and “D Houzz”–
Sorry for the long post, but hey, hopefully you got a bit more than the usual “recruitment blurb.” 
Seriously–we can’t wait to have you among our ranks.
-Derek (aka Aurora Borealis, representing Apollo and Artemis, of Olympia)
