SWTOR: alliance guild discussion

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OK for those that dont know we actually have 2 alliance guilds. There's ours with the sexy name and then there's the folks from Eldain a Firimoin who've been the home for a butt-ton of Goodjers in LotRO.

We've been discussing the idea of possibly merging these 2 together. Well more like we would roll into their guild. We did decide on a name, but these guys have a sucessful history together already and my thought on the manner is why rock the boat.

Another reason i'm in favor of this is would be puting more goodjers into 1 basket and we'd be able accomplish more with a bigger roster. Plus we'd all still be Goodjers and more the merrier i say. Not to mention it'd make it easier for directing new comers and say "for the light side GWJ guild go here" instead of having multiple options.

So anyway... nothing's final, just wanted to get everyone's ideas/thoughts/curses/feedback. With preorders up and going things may start rolling pretty quickly and would like to get this squared away before that.

How do they feel about it?

I've never been a part of a guild. Frankly, I'm pretty unreliable.

I'm of the same mind as you, Ran. I'd rather see the entire community together than apart.

It's bad enough we need a Sith guild as well, I'd rather not have a third guild. Not only will it confuse people, we'll all want to play with one another anyway, why not make that as easy as possible?

I am in agreement as well. The more the merrier and the more apt you are to find people with playing times that match your own.

2 cents... 1 light 1 dark side guild is best, all playing on the same server. Would be nice to have our affiliated name attached (gwj something) as a promotional tool? Not sure if you'll run your raid info on the forum like WOW or not, but it does have the nice ability of free advertising for those interested in joining the guild. It does have its pro's and con's but I think the pro's far out way anything negative.

I am for this if and only if the guild is open to all goodjers (i.e. any goodjer in good standing may join instantly no questions asked), all discussion for the guild takes place on the GWJ forums, and the guild has no policies in place except those equivalent to the GWJ forums Code of Conduct. Otherwise, it's not a GWJ guild, it's a guild that a lot of GWJ members happen to belong to, and I'm not interested in that.

If it goes that way, though, I can always go dark side instead.

As one of the long time GWJ/Eldainers on LoTRO I want to say that, indeed, all GWJ'ers would be welcome in the Eldain-TOR guild (presently named the Gray Council, with some loreish mumbo-jumbo about Gray Jedi.) now and in the future.

While not all members of Eldain are GWJ'ers most are and the ones who are not fit our mold.

A few things we can offer the GWJ community.

We are working on a companion website to eldain.com for use as a scheduling, game mechanic discussions, etc. destination. While I plan on frequenting any SWTOR threads here at GWJ pre and post launch, a separate website can be useful for all of those class mechanic threads (*cough* Rift *cough) that tend of spread here.

Additionally, we offer a 25 user vent server.

Finally, if we do merge, I would hope that we would get a number of new GWJ'ers interested in officer roles and even joint leadership position.

If anyone has any further questions about the cut of our jib, feel free to seek out Psych, Nihlo or AnimeJ, who are just 3 of the more well known Goodgers who call Eldain home.

Hypatian wrote:

I am for this if and only if the guild is open to all goodjers (i.e. any goodjer in good standing may join instantly no questions asked), all discussion for the guild takes place on the GWJ forums, and the guild has no policies in place except those equivalent to the GWJ forums Code of Conduct. Otherwise, it's not a GWJ guild, it's a guild that a lot of GWJ members happen to belong to, and I'm not interested in that.

Both Ranalin's alliance and my sith are being run this way. We're looking at it that we're just branches of the same guild. I expect all our Sith to have alts in Ally that want to and vice versa. My personal preference is that anyone in either guild needs to be on the forum here but I don't think Ran and I have talked about that.

As far as guild resources, I think the Sith guild alone has 2 25 man vent servers and 2 25 man mumbles. I don't anticipate needing that much but w/e. It's all stuff members have bought for other games and the Ally guild is more than welcome to use it. I may also pick up a personal one if we need to since ELewis turned over his to the LoL guys it can get pretty packed.

tundra wrote:

2 cents... 1 light 1 dark side guild is best, all playing on the same server. Would be nice to have our affiliated name attached (gwj something) as a promotional tool? Not sure if you'll run your raid info on the forum like WOW or not, but it does have the nice ability of free advertising for those interested in joining the guild. It does have its pro's and con's but I think the pro's far out way anything negative.

Yeah... I know. But we left the Sith guild up to a vote and we don't have similar names. Democracy is as Sith as it gets.

Hypatian wrote:

I am for this if and only if the guild is open to all goodjers (i.e. any goodjer in good standing may join instantly no questions asked), all discussion for the guild takes place on the GWJ forums, and the guild has no policies in place except those equivalent to the GWJ forums Code of Conduct. Otherwise, it's not a GWJ guild, it's a guild that a lot of GWJ members happen to belong to, and I'm not interested in that.

Discussion wouldnt have gone that far if this wasnt the case. Only exception is all discussion wouldnt be just on this forum. They have their own set up or being set up for this. Thats not saying we'd stop all discussion here. In fact i suspect with the exception of scheduling and a few other items the majority of our discussion will continue on as normal since thats what we're used to.

Those of us who've been part of the BHA WoW guild understands the benefits of having an off-site to discuss things as well.

Ignore my opinion but I'm not interested in going to another forum for guild stuff.

ranalin wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

I am for this if and only if the guild is open to all goodjers (i.e. any goodjer in good standing may join instantly no questions asked), all discussion for the guild takes place on the GWJ forums, and the guild has no policies in place except those equivalent to the GWJ forums Code of Conduct. Otherwise, it's not a GWJ guild, it's a guild that a lot of GWJ members happen to belong to, and I'm not interested in that.

Discussion wouldnt have gone that far if this wasnt the case. Only exception is all discussion wouldnt be just on this forum. They have their own set up or being set up for this. Thats not saying we'd stop all discussion here. In fact i suspect with the exception of scheduling and a few other items the majority of our discussion will continue on as normal since thats what we're used to.

Those of us who've been part of the BHA WoW guild understands the benefits of having an off-site to discuss things as well.

Yeah, this sounds like a deal breaker for me. Like I said: That makes it not a GWJ guild but a guild that a lot of GWJ members happen to belong to. This is the GWJ community--anything that requires a separate forum may be many things, but it's not a pure GWJ thing any more. That's quite okay for whoever wants to do it--but it's not at all what I'm interested in being part of. If there's a GWJ light-side guild besides that, I'd like to be part of it. If not, I guess I'll have to go dark-side. That frustrates me more than a little because I would really like to play a consular.

Vector wrote:

Ignore my opinion but I'm not interested in going to another forum for guild stuff.

Perfectly valid opinion.

Vector wrote:

I've never been a part of a guild. Frankly, I'm pretty unreliable.

Again to emphasize, Eldain is made up of Goodgers and like minded folks. We have a number of Eldainers who never visit the Eldain forums and get by just fine in game. The same would be true with any hypothetical merged guild. Use of those forums would not be required.

Then why not just do everything on this forum?

Are there any actual in-game advantages to being in a guild?

Even if you aren't using any other guild features, it's nice to have a channel to chat on with whoever happens to be online at the time. Other features include things like being able to throw stuff you don't need into a guild bank for other players to pick up (or pick things up from it yourself). WoW introduced a concept of guild progression with some minor perks for the guild members, although I don't know if SW:TOR has stolen that.

For me, the primary desire is the community: people to chat with. That's why I'm mainly concerned with what that community is. If conversing on the GWJ forums isn't sufficient, that implies that this is a fully fleshed community distinct from GWJ (otherwise, there would be no problem with using GWJ forums to communicate. If the existing group isn't comfortable doing that, it's a clear sign that they're a separate community in their own right.) I'm not interested in joining a new community at the moment: I want to play with goodjers.

Hypatian wrote:

Then why not just do everything on this forum?

Besides the fact that all GWJ guilds that have tried to conduct long term guild business on this forum and who are not BHA have withered and died within 6 months of a game's release?

In addition to that, there is the recent history of Rift players making class and game discussion threads here and receiving some blowback for doing so.

Finally, as I said, we do have some Eldainers who are not GWJ'ers (a housewife from California, a couple from Brazil, a couple from Canada, etc.) while they seldom if ever frequent GWJ, they all do have that GWJ sensibility of don't be an asshat.

Vector wrote:

Are there any actual in-game advantages to being in a guild?

If there are guild perks at launch those could prove useful. There is a sense of comradery or at least potential entertainment from guild chat. There are often extra transportation mechanisms available to guilds, and perks like guild banks and no cost Auction House listings. Finally, it makes it easier to never PUG and to turn off /OOC.

That would be best, GWJ MMO guild number ALWAYS goes down over time so it would be nice to start off with a higher number!

I'm all about the merge

Hello! My name is Psych. Some of you may know me, others may not.

I play Lotro, and have been in the Eldain kinship for a little over 3 years. The kinship was highly recommended to me by two other goodjers, and it is where many Lotro goodjers have ended up. Not all of them though, and we are perfectly fine with that.

I just want to jump in here and try to ease some of the concern over a possible merger. I know when people hear the word merger, they immediately think of large-scale downsizing. I am here to tell you that is NOT the case! In fact, this merger is being considered to specifically INCREASE guild size. Can you believe it!

In all seriousness, there are some serious advantages to be had from a merger, but I also understand peoples hesitation. I just wanted to jump in here and try to see if we can work to an understanding. Please try to point any other potential TOR players here so everyone has a chance to speak up.

This is not a guaranteed move, but it has the potential of being something which allows GWJ to maintain a strong guild presence in game for a longer period of time. Eldain has been around Lotro for over 4 years. It's numbers have gone up and down during that time, but it still has a strong game presence.

I would like to see a successful guild in TOR, but if a merger will divide the group then we will have to find alternatives.

Also, I played LoTR with the GWJEld group and it was just fine.

Hyp, we can still talk here @GWJ all day long in this forum and you wouldn't have to really visit any other forum.

karmajay wrote:

Also, I played LoTR with the GWJEld group and it was just fine.

Hyp, we can still talk here @GWJ all day long in this forum and you wouldn't have to really visit any other forum.

And if you have serious concerns, the Sith guild will only be using the Bioware forum for officer/ admin stuff. I fully intend to use here and here only for general things.

If there is a merger, can we make sure Ranalin is an officer? He's basically taken the ball and run with it here, organizing all our TOR stuff.

oilypenguin wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Also, I played LoTR with the GWJEld group and it was just fine.

Hyp, we can still talk here @GWJ all day long in this forum and you wouldn't have to really visit any other forum.

And if you have serious concerns, the Sith guild will only be using the Bioware forum for officer/ admin stuff. I fully intend to use here and here only for general things.

If there is a merger, can we make sure Ranalin is an officer? He's basically taken the ball and run with it here, organizing all our TOR stuff.

Ranalin was actually the one to approach us at Eldain when we first started considering a merger. He would of course be an officer, if he is willing, and we would have one Eldain member as an officer. The rest I would think would be decided by the group, or by the original officers. Or however people do that.

Eldain has a strong core of players, but I imagine GWJ is going to have superior numbers, at least at the beginning. Especially since a large number of Eldain people are also Goodjers. While I think initially each group should have a presence in the leadership, I am pretty sure that after a short time there won't be a need to distinguish between the two original groups, as you will all just be one group of superfriends. They will probably make a saturday morning cartoon about it.

Right. Not interested at all now. Dark side it is. The mere fact that "have a presence in the leadership" is a phrase worth mentioning seals it.

Hypatian wrote:

Right. Not interested at all now. Dark side it is. The mere fact that "have a presence in the leadership" is a phrase worth mentioning seals it.

Seriously? You are just going to give up because I have problems phrasing things? How about you ask me what I mean instead just abandoning something altogether? For all I know this will be a 100% Goodjer run group. The person who is initially picked from eldain will probably also be a goodjer. I don't really know what they are planning, but I would prefer you would ask what I mean before assuming this is going to be some sort of outsider run operation.

I only posted here to try to give people another face to who this other group is. I am not here to drive anyone away by my poor choice in language. I apologize if I made it sound like people weren't going to have a voice in this.

I'm for a merger as well - larger is better when it comes to MMO communities. I'd hope that when people on the Rep side want to make Imp characters, IPP would be their first choice, and vice versa.

I do understand the concern regarding leadership; I'd recommend seeing how things actually shake out after a couple of weeks of gameplay before jumping to conclusions. Guild communities take a while to gel, even if they're made of Goodjers.

It's not the people, it's the established community. I want to join something fresh--just a group of goodjers hanging around, and somebody has admin powers to deal with anyone who goes totally batsh*t insane (which is unlikely, because these are goodjers we're talking about.) I don't want to join a group with history. I don't want to join a group where people already "know" how they interact with other people in the group in this sort of game.

I have no problems with any of the people, I'm sure everyone's nice. I'm sure there will be plenty of goodjers. I'm just not interested in joining an established thing at this point. (This is the "it's not you, it's me" talk.) This is probably excess paranoia on my part, but I know how I work in that kind of scenario (raided in WoW for many years with an established guild), and I expressly want to avoid that right now to the point that I would rather solo and just hang out with goodjers from time to time if I'm playing light side.

I was expecting to join a new guild that is what I describe, and now I'm learning that instead we're going to be part of a larger community that has been around a while. So I'm kind of ticked off. I apologize for being cranky.

Hypatian wrote:

I was expecting to join a new guild that is what I describe, and now I'm learning that instead we're going to be part of a larger community that has been around a while. So I'm kind of ticked off. I apologize for being cranky.

I feel like you are getting the wrong impression here, and I hope you won't make any final decisions. I am in no way the final authority on these matters, and I am beginning to feel like my posting here is only making this worse.

Psych, I thought your post was fine. I am also ok with the merger having had experience with the Eldain LoTro group. Hypatian is entitled to his opinion and the Dark Side Guild will probably meet his desires. As far as I can tell he is the only one with an issue with a merger. I don't see anything that isn't par for the course for GWJ MMO participation except we are starting the merge early and there will be a separate forum available, but not necessary to participate.

Yeah--I think I'm the only one whose expectations were thrown off.

Hey there everyone, Namikaze here. I've been lurking on the GWJ forums for a good long while, but I am one of the original Eldain members. This post will likely be long, because I am attempting to address a number of concerns at once, and to hopefully alleviate any future concerns as well.

First, a quick story of who I am so that you know where I'm coming from and what to expect from me. I have been playing MMOs since the days of Ultima Online, and played some MUDs before that. I ran a tremendously successful guild in SWG, and managed the city there too. We numbered about 80 unique players with several alts as well. Back in the days of SWG, you could have guilds of mixed alliance and we did just that. My style of guild management worked well, but after that I decided to take a back seat to a number of great guild leaders. The best one I know is Badferret. We could not have asked for a more passionate, reliable, level-headed and generally great leader for Eldain. In fact it was Badferret who got me over to the Goodjers and a few other Eldainers have joined GWJ as a result of his exemplary gameplay and behavior.

Secondly, a little background on Eldain. Eldain started four years ago, and has passed leadership twice since then. We had a very long dry spell which nearly ended the kinship, but thanks to GWJ we were able to revitalize ourselves. Taking a quick look at the membership list, about 75-80% of our active membership are also Goodjers. Our leader is Badferret, which means yes, Eldain is run by a Goodjer. And of the six officers in Eldain, four of them are Goodjers (Badferret, Psych, myself, and Nihilo). So don't worry that Eldain isn't Goodjer material, because we bleed GWJ.

Third, some information about the Gray Council. Having experience in leading a guild and city in SWG lead to me being asked to head up the Eldain SWTOR guild (the Gray Council). I happily accepted the challenge, and we moved forward with recruitment from within the Eldain ranks. Doing so meant that some people had to be asked to question if they would join the GWJ guild or the Eldain guild, and since we are so GWJ-heavy, it would be awkward at best for many of them. Ranalin suggested that we merge guilds, which has a lot of favorable effects. But it also comes with some potential blowback. I want to reassure everyone that GWJ will always be at the fore of anything that the Gray Council does. While not all of the Gray Council members are Goodjers, I anticipate that the majority of them will be.

Finally a few notes to mull over. While the group of Eldainers has been around each other for a long time, so have the group of Goodjers. Fortunately, many of these groups are composed of the same people. Every single one of the Eldainers that aren't Goodjers would fit in around here without a hitch. If the concern is that you will be ostracized or left out of a "clique", then that concern is unreasonable in this situation. If we were talking about a group of people that weren't already so Goodjer-heavy, I would understand. But since the overwhelming majority of our membership is already a Goodjer, there is no "clique" or "us versus them" mentality.

I would ask that if you're interested in either playing with the Eldain/Goodjers, please go to the Eldain forums and sign up for access. Regardless, no one at Eldain is looking to steal anyone from the GWJ guild or to subvert the GWJ guild in any way. I think we all want the same thing, since every single Goodjer that I've met through LOTRO has been just the cream of the crop and merged into Eldain flawlessly. Badferret and I have been Eldain members for a number of years, essentially from the start of the guild, and we have been consistently impressed with how similar the two groups tend to be. Whenever we've handled a merger before, it's been completely seamless, in large part due to the "gaming philosophy" of both Eldain and GWJ.

Gray Council
Eldain a Firimoin

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