Hey Celestial Hills folks. I'm a member of Yumie's guild, Amity. That means two things:
1) I have a bias toward Amity. They are a fun group and I like being part of them.
2) I have actually had a chance to interact with Yumie enough to get a sense of her character.

Yumie doesn't know and didn't ask me to say anything about her, but in real politics I usually wish I could talk to people who knows the candidates personally, so I could have more information about who they really are. I'm a Psychology MA and a therapist in real life, so I'm getting practiced at judging people's character, but in real politics things seem to get muddy quickly. I don't know Yumie beyond being an involved guild member and a few chat conversations, but I wanted to share briefly a couple things I know about her right now and why I feel good about her being a Vanarch:

1. Yumie has a lot of humility
It takes a certain amount of ambition to put yourself out there as a guild leader. I lead a small guild once before in City of Heroes and being in charge has a certain zing to it. But with Yumie, I've noticed that she is quick to delegate and she readily praises the efforts of those who help her. She's created a whole atmosphere of encouragement in Amity as a result. She more often puts other members of our guild into the spotlight than she puts herself in the spotlight, through her language and the events she thinks up. She's just not a very proud or egotistical person. When some of us thought up an RP plot that would be about Yumie, her first instinct was to try to reframe it to include and highlight more people.:)

2. She cares a lot about the happiness of other people
As a guild leader, Yumie can't be everywhere and take care of everybody. And, in addition to that, we're all actually here mostly to play a video game, so there are plenty of times when she's just questing with guildies or doing normal leveling stuff. But man does she spend a lot of time considering what will help our little community. I think that's mostly what TERA is about for Yumie- people having fun and having memorable experiences that they can take away with them. She created Amity around that idea. As a result of her generosity of time, of praise, and even of real money, our community trusts her to do right by them consistently, and they give back quickly. Our guild bank is stuffed full of donated items. We're a small guild (50ish members), but people forked over more than a thousand more gold over Yumie needed to apply for Vanarch in less than a day. I've heard Yumie state multiple times that its the fellowship and fun the players are having that matters, and she fights for that, and we love her for it.

3. She is thoughtful and competent at leading
Yumie started Amity by posting a clear vision of the casual and community-oriented way she likes to play MMOs. That got some folks interested, myself included. I tend to be really slow to join guilds (in plenty of MMOs, I don't bother), but when I heard her vision so clearly explained and when I saw the work she put into communicating with people who were interested (she spends so much time just talking to people to help them!), I thought I'd give it a try. She's lead several awesome guild events, made some really good choices about how to delegate different types of responsibility, set up rules for our guild that create fairness but offer a lot of trust, and even as she welcomes lots of feedback, she has no trouble putting her foot down when core values are at stake.

Now, I can't tell you exactly what Yumie will do as Vanarch. I don't know that. But I know that her character makes me feel safe giving her more power to do more things for more TERA players. I hope this write-up helps you as you're trying to figure out where you want to put your vote, even if you don't end up voting for Yumie. :)

I wanted to take the time to support Amity's Yumie for Vanarch of Sylvanoth Province.

As Joel already stated a lot about Yumie, I will keep my post short. If you want one person on your side, it's Yumie. She has the intuition, integrity, honor, loyalty, and the know-how to make things happen without her being the center of attention!

In all of my years of gaming (since UO), I've never seen anyone like her. In our lifetimes we are lucky to find that one person to be our boss, mate, etc. Well, Yumie fulfills that category as a guild leader for Amity. For me, this is like my first gaming experience.... there will never be another guild for me. It's just THAT good.

I'm posting a picture because Yumie and our alliance members have already gone out of their way to make things happen. The election is real, folks and so is Yumie!!

You might also want to consider voting for Leon.Dawnblade of Arbitrator in South Shara's Allementia area!!


REdo2 by cevandies, on Flickr

Yumie has my vote.

I am also a member of Amity. I was welcomed into Amity back during the beginning Betas and have never once regretted joining . Being an older gamer I was a bit hesitant to join a guild so early but my chats with Yumie prior to joining left me with no doubts this would be the right guild for me. She is honest, straightforward and has continued to stick by her guns with rules that were established from the get go.

Yumie truly is a fantastic leader, well orgainized, generous, thoughtful and wise beyond her years (lol I could be her mother). She knows every single member of Amity by character name and believe it or not, all of our alts! Yumie greets each and every one of us when we log on no matter what she is doing.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who would be better suited than Yumie to be Vanarch of Sylvanoth Province.

~ IGN Petal


ps.......... We recently had the pleasure of joing our Alliance members, Leon.Dawnblade of Arbitrator and his guild, for a ride and photo shoot from Velika to Celestial Hills. He is quite the gentleman and a friend of Amity. He will be running for Vanarch of South Shara's Allementia Province. Please remember him on election day as well!

Great write-up Joel, and I agree with everything. If Yumie is elected, I'll be doing my best to earn policy points so we can keep all stores and features open for everyone. :)

You will not earning those alone, Alopius. As a member of Amity and a friend of Yumie, I will also help.

Now back to the point. I have been with Amity since the Close Beta 3 and I am glad that I found Yumie's thread among dozens of other guild's recruits thread. I dont play much MMO, If I do, I prefer to play alone, but after knowing about Yumie's ideas, I want to play TERA with her right away. Since then, I have so many friends and having fun with them all, Amity and Yumie have all my trust in them. Now, I cant image if I ever can play TERA without them anymore.

Well, enough of that, in the end, you are the one who will see and judge Yumie. If she wins the election then Im sure that she will do her best for you, players who want to have good time, to experience a Tera that is full with happiness. Furthermore, we, the members of Amity, will always stand beside Yumie to help not as guild members but as friends.

And dont forget to find more information about Leon.Dawnblade of Arbitrator. We, Amity, dont forget and we will always help our allies, and those who need help, by any mean possible.

p.s: Pardon my poor writing, Im very bad at expressing my opinion and English is my second language. I wish all of you luck and happiness on your journey in Tera.

Came upon this thread completely by accident (was searching for a non-related forum topic that somehow brought me to this post).. I gotta say its quite an interesting read...

It is not a surprise that people get support from their fellow guildmates. But to have multiple people going over in fine details on how they support their guild leader and why... is quite a breath of fresh air.

>I'm a Psychology MA and a therapist in real life, so I'm getting practiced at judging people's character, but in real politics things seem to get muddy quickly. I don't know Yumie beyond being an involved guild member and a few chat conversations, but I wanted to share briefly a couple things I know about her right now and why I feel good about her being a Vanarch:
Off to a bad start here, pal. I don't know what any of your alleged real life proficiencies have to do with the Vanarchy system but I can tell you from experience psychology really doesn't mean a damn thing on the internet. You don't know her beyond being an involved guild member? How reassuring that your guild leader didn't make it a point to know you on an intimate level despite you being involved in guild events, even after multiple chat conversations. You're awfully confident in her capacity despite being entirely incapable of knowing it, just because you're a... real life therapist?

>1. Yumie has a lot of humility
Humility is not a good quality for a Vanarch. Leadership requires conviction and strength, and someone who is humble will easily roll over for the needs of the foolish or be overcome by our enemies. I have no interest in a humble leader, I want a leader who is strong and great and knows it and exerts it in their actions.

>2. She cares a lot about the happiness of other people
Which makes her a terrible candidate. A good leader knows how to make decisions that benefit the greater good, and often those decisions will anger people. A leader who is too afraid that a demographic will be unhappy is hesitant and weak, I'd prefer a leader who knows what is best and expects their actions to reap their own rewards and resources. Happiness is not a resource, it's a temporary chemical state your mind is put in because you have undue control, I'd rather be happy because of success and good leadership, not because the leader will do whatever I say if I whine at her long enough.

>3. She is thoughtful and competent at leading
Considering this is her first Vanarchy, there is no reason for me to think she's competent at it. In fact, I don't know why you lump "thoughtful and competent" in the same thing like they're relevant but I'll stick to the one worthy of interest because thoughtful is about the most useless word I've ever seen associated with a leader. You're saying Yumie is a viable candidate and a good leader because she said "Hey, want to join my guild," and people said yes? Yet she's not here telling me herself, she sends her lowbie guildies out to promote her image so she APPEARS humble. Well if she was so humble, she'd come here and race on her merits, not try to spread her word like she's Jehovah.

>Now, I can't tell you exactly what Yumie will do as Vanarch. I don't know that.
Well that's reassuring. You don't even know her platform, and you support her? You'd think her guild would be made well aware of her intent as a Vanarch. Perhaps it's safe to assume she's not exactly that good at communicating or doesn't really know what she intends to do? It's good to know that she has kept her intent so secretive because it means it will probably benefit a small group. Like her guild.

The point is, guilds are going to vote for their own. I have no intent to vote for your guild leader because quite frankly, I don't think she's anything special. Just another casual guild leader who wants something they can't properly utilize. I don't care how many happy faces she entails all her messages with, if she can't bring anything interesting and beneficial to the table, she's a waste of everyone's time.

Quote: Zabasaz on 05/22/2012, 01:08 PM - view

Dude, +10. I couldnt have said it any better, cigarette fell right out of my mouth when I saw this post.

Im all seriousness, who do you think is going to vote for "Yumie"? Her guild. Who are you appealing to? People in OTHER guilds whose guild leaders are running for Vanarch? Are you appealing to unguilded people who likely dont even care about Vanarch?

Zabasaz,
Sorry the post hit a wrong note with you. You are certainly free to disagree on what qualifies someone to be a Vanarch and on my ability to know things. Feel free to cast your vote accordingly.

Zieg,
I'm appealing to every person who has a vote for Northern Shara and is undecided. Many people are in guilds and will vote for their guild leaders. That's totally fine. For those who aren't sure who is running and what they are like, I hope my post will give them a sense of what Yumie is like.