d20radio.com

Not sure if this is the right place to write this, feel free to move the topic if not, but I didn't find a "regarding guild matters" or "about our guild activity" forum.

This post is for our guild leadership and those members who bother to read the forums.

In the last month, I logged in almost every day into SW:ToR and if I recall what I did in-gamewise, the result is pretty much zero. We are accepting new applications all the time, but we have no high level gameplay to speak of. We are lagging behind almost all other guilds in pve progress, both in gear and experience. Everyone is rolling up alts, or playing multiple characters simultaneously, after or before completing their class storyline. We have millions of crafters with the same skills, but not once have I seen them exchange schematics or ideas on how to make different mods or gear for members of our guild for the mats or or in exchange for other crafted stuff. I assume everyone makes their own stuff and that's it?
We had some RP events, but nothing actually happened so far, only chitchat and smalltalk, what I can get from standing in a cantina with a pickup rp group. For weeks we didn't even have that. Weekly world boss takedown is also gone, and so is the regular datacron hunting night. I won't even mention attempts at hardmodes and ops, because we have players doing pvp for weeks and months waiting for others to catch up and make such high level content palyable. Instead they do pvp all the time or go with pickup groups, or players from outside the guild. Let's face it: we are undergeared, lack game experience, and don't have enough diverse roles to do this content, but above all we lack proper communication. Every evening I'm on, and often our very own vent server is completely deserted. Some people I spoke with also admitted that they only rarely read the forums, where we were trying to freaking organize anything game-related.
I hardly see any real activity in guild chat when I am on, other than the usual "DING! Level up!" or "Wutiinii!" comment or an occasional "how are you?" which brightens my day because I think that people are finally trying to socialize with guildmates.
I know some people only play with a specific other person, and others have schedules that don't allow for regular gameplay, but there is the rest. In the end I cannot help but feel like we fail at organizing and are not behaving like an active guild should. It is almost like everyone is playing their own little single player game online. What is the guild for then?
We have a guild-wiki constantly updated with game information, where we have a player and character list. It is dissapointing that I can count the decent character profiles with my fingers alone from the roster from a guild that claims to be RP-heavy. You would think that someone actually reads that stuff in order to better interact during our roleplay events right? Or is it there for personal amusement and I compeltely missed something?
Said things in general have already led to my best friend playing his sage Nysha to quit the guild simply because he wanted to paly actively with more experienced players. I confess, I am considering the same thing, but to tell the truth I would rather try to find a solution to this problem, and that is the reason rather than simple whining, why I write this long rant.
I am not sure if anyone else feel this way, feel free to flame me all you want, but I want some positive changes in our guild, and hopefully this post might start a discussion on how to achieve that.
This is a good community. I like it and I'd rather play with you guys than another guild. I'm hoping we can improve our guild matters, and I am 100% commited to help in doing so whatever way I can.
Please discuss.

I think that perhaps your expectations are a little bit off base. From our guild wiki:



Fun First. Everyone is in charge of their own fun, and right now for a lot of people that is creating Alts and moving through the story lines at their own pace. The game has been out, as of yesterday, for two months. That's all. While many of us have reached level 50, the vast majority of folks will take a much longer time to get to 50. When I joined WoW, it took me over a year to reach level 60. But that was fun for me.

Again from our wiki:


When you realize that we're, by design, an unfocused guild who is not created for the sole purpose of pushing through end-game content, or RPing, or PvP, then things become more clear. We have a lot of people, and for each of these activities only some of them will be interested. Myself for instance, I don't really care a whit about RP in an MMO ... I've got my tabletop games at home for that ... but I do enjoy running instances, and I do enjoy seeing all the story lines. So what do I do? I organize an Ops team that has been working through Eternity Vault, and I play Alts.

The main thing I would say in response to your frustration is ... what have you done to solve it? Are you organizing another RP event that is more directed? Are you organizing an Ops team? Are you leading Weekly World Boss Takedown? How about the Datacron hunt? This community is what we will make of it, each and every one of us.

If you want change, be the change, don't expect the officers to make the change. They can't control other people, no one can, you can only change you. So do so.

_________________

I am currently working out an RP event focused around an investigation yes, I am working on the model on how to build a group specifically for preparing for ops and doing hard modes on weekends. I tried to incite people for world boss takedowns several times unsuccessfully, lead an ops group consisting of many of our level 50s to the fleet datacron, and fail getting interest for hard modes almost every day. So thank you.

And officers are officers for a reason. We have a RP coordinator, and I know TJ is working on something for more fun events, he told me so himself. We have a so called ops leader, but most of the time its others who are looking for groups for hard modes and ops. We have (had) people in charge for organizing events for different nights of the week but they stopped doing so? Why? I will do something aboutthis if that is required, but if you have people running the guild who took on their responsibilities, why do you expect the members to do their job?

The fact that took the time to express your feelings on this subject is appreciated Zain... alot of other people would have just left without saying anything.

Since the Order draws from such a variety of fields and play style this is indeed going to be challenge for us as a guild to face. We have several small hardcore groups (RP and Ops) that I think need to a way to make their activities more accessible / fun for the majority casual players aka cast a wider net.

The Ops group should talk amongst themselves and consider doing a 16 man so we can include more people in the fun(16 man is actually designed to be easier).

RP... not exactly my strong point I'd love to see ideas on how to make this more exciting.

You definitely have a passion ... I'd love to hear your ideas on how we can get the guild more engaged with each other.

_________________
Captain Zeece / Sgt. Perrian
Order of Sixty Six Webmaster
Guildmaster for The Exiled Lords




Co-host of Geekhead Radio
look me up on Twitter, Google + or Facebook - Clayton Havens

I'll add on to my original comment.. An Officer's responisbility is NOT to do all the heavy lifting to make the game fun for everyone... its to be a guide and nurture...to help things along.

I encourage people daily (almost always privately) to get involved in Ops groups... directing them to TJ, Airfree'tta and others who want put together groups. I unfortunately do not have a magic wand to go poof and make groups form (I truly wish I did).

In the end it takes the hard work of the dedicated(just not the officers) for a guild to be successful. Keep that passion Zain... never loss it.

_________________
Captain Zeece / Sgt. Perrian
Order of Sixty Six Webmaster
Guildmaster for The Exiled Lords




Co-host of Geekhead Radio
look me up on Twitter, Google + or Facebook - Clayton Havens

Yeah, I see officers just like managers. A good manager does not do everything, but learns to delegate, and needs a team that will help him work on everything. It really is all of our duty to try and help the guild as best we can.

Thus, I think we should all think about how we can help.

To kick it off, here are things I'm starting to do:
1. We are going to get a PvP lead in place to help coordinate guild PvPers
2. I've been talking with other PvPers to get more events like the Wednesday night Ilum raids going.
3. I've started doing write ups for PvP
4. I'll start making more quick savant enchancements for those who need it
5. I'm working on another RP event, so that AsaTJ isn't the one who has to run them every week.

_________________
You're good, but you're no Luke Skywalker - Wedge Antilles
You're good, but you're no Wes Janson - Wes Janson

As a non-officer of the guild I think it might be helpful to see the game from my perspective? I used to be a weekly raider in LOTRO. I would PvP almost every weekend in SWG. But frankly, it took a lot of pushing at that point to get me into it, plus I had more time.

First, I have a kid. Occasionally I can put him in front of Lego Star Wars and get a few hours reprieve, but I think if I did that too much, his 3-year-old brain would be mush. I like to put the game aside and spend time with my kid. Unfortunately, having a kid also means unpredicability. I don't want to be pissing off the hard-core PvPers or the hard core end-gamers because my son woke up from a nightmare and needs to be hugged, or that he's sick, or some such nonsense. I refuse to feel guilty about stepping away from the game for ANY reason, to give my son attention. Thus, to save others, I have avoided the big time consuming events.

Second, I have experience with asshats in end-game content. I'm not saying anyone in this guild will be... but I'm saying that it's made me a little gun shy. I don't want to be yelled at because I accidentally tabbed wrong and hit the wrong target. I also don't want to be told I don't know how to play my character right. I've already seen a post on this forum where an entire group was called out because there were a few people who made mistakes. The entire group was given a "lecture" of sorts, about knowing how to play their class. I don't want to be given a lecture for not playing my class as awesome as someone else can. When I hit 50 on my scoundrel, I was told that since I never PvPed before that, that I wasn't preppared and I'd get creamed in PvP and end game content. Well.. guess what that did? Turned me completely off any desire to do that. What's the point if I'm pretty much going to repeatedly get my ass handed to me?

Third, RP has been scarce. I know Tilpie has made several suggestions for RP outside of the cantina. I fully agree with him. I can say that I've tried to join in on the Cantina RP. I even emoted my character getting on a table next to the 66er group and dancing. I was completely ignored. So my desire to actually stop and RP has been minimal at best. However.. I was impressed with THE JEDI ORDER, for seeing a recruitment process Roleplayed from beginning to end, on Tython next to the Jedi temple. That was impressive and I wonder if we'll ever be able to do that. I find the problem lies in big long storylines, where if you don't make it to the beginning, you're pretty much screwed out of that entire thing. Probably why I don't like storyline driven RP. It just doesn't work for the casual RPer.

Fourth, I play a lot with Preacher23. We have several husband and wife teams in the guild, and we enjoy playing with each other. I know that the hubby and I get in ruts where we don't want to leave our questing experience to go do a hard-mode and wipe a million times and have ridiculously high repair bills. More often than not, I can't even afford those repair bills, so again, I'm gun shy.

I'm sorry you're so frustrated. It sucks to be part of something, where you don't feel like you're getting what YOU want out of it. But I have to say, make it what you want it to be. All I ask, is that you try not to get too upset with those of us who aren't able to, or have no desire to, set up times for ops.

Plus, I'm not going to sign up for any Ops because as of April 4th, I start my internship for school and I'll be working 60 hours a week. I'll barely be home as it is, let alone in game.

_________________

A little exaggerated - Prone to Exaggeration
Find me on Google+ - Katie Burton

I can only speak for myself when it comes to how I play MMO's in general, but here it is in a nutshell.

I have a 3 year old. As much as I would LOVE to get to end game content, I will always have/want to have my son take priority over grinding gear. Also, this is the first MMO where I have wanted to play every class in order to experience the story and not just stay on my main. I love end game content and have no issue with grinding but only after I have exhausted most of the content.

That being said, I will make it more of a point to drop what I am doing and help out in high end or low end content if I can. This goes for everyone. Tracking me down will just be the issue

_________________

Co-host of Geekhead Radio
Follow me on Twitter @GeekheadAaron
Look me up on Google+ -Aaron Burton

I can take the rap for this one, and I explained why on the latest Holocron. It was a matter of expectations set too high. I waited for quite a while to gather some more support to run the kinds of events I'd been planning for over a year, and ultimately, it never fully materialized. I think part of the problem here is related to one of your other concerns, but I'll get to that.

As for the second part of that comment, I don't know what you're talking about. RP Cantina has happened basically every week since launch with one exception.


This part, I could not agree with more. I've been meaning for a while now to post something in the Officer boards about how we can get more people on the forums. I've been in guilds less than half our size that had four to five times more daily forum activity than we do. I don't think half our members have even logged on here except to submit an application, and maybe 10% (generously) post once a week or more about anything guild related.

I think the guild would improve noticeably in all areas if we could solve that particular issue.


Understand where I was coming from with that. As a guild officer, all I can really do is ask that people trust that my intentions are to make the game more fun for everyone. The fact is, you have to be able to play at a certain level to make Operations viable. You can choose to play to that level, or you can choose not to do Ops, because the content is just going to not be possible to complete if you don't. I was trying to make sure everyone the tools they needed to have fun at that level of content (ie: not die repeatedly on the first encounter and go home with nothing but a big repair bill.)

I've said this elsewhere, but I'm notorious for having things I express in written format come off as douchebaggy. Ask anyone who was there, and they will tell you that I was not that way at all during the actual Op, even after wipe #5. I'm honestly in this for fun, and I don't get bent out of shape when we lose. I just think it would be more fun if we won, and I was trying to do my part to address the reasons we didn't for future runs.

Personally, if I'm doing something wrong that is preventing me and my group from getting through content, I do want someone to tell me how to play my class better. But I understand that not everyone is like that, and I'll respect that fact.


Again, I understand where you're coming from. Starting this week, I'm going to be pushing for more diverse RP on a regular basis, starting with our Return to Alderaan event. Understand, also, though, that planning these events is a time commitment for me each week. I've done everything I can think of so far to try and get more people RPing, and help them have more fun doing so. I think the reason you felt ignored at the Casino night was because you came in at a point where most of the characters there were already engaged in conversations, and it seemed (to me at least) that you and preacher had paired off and were having a good time, until you left.

In my experience, 9 times out of 10, you have to almost ambush people with your RP to guarantee interaction. If you expect it to come to you, you'll wind up out of luck often. The best way to get someone's attention is to emote at them or direct a comment their way. It's a public venue. Don't be afraid to stick your nose in people's business.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback you've provided in this thread. Speaking for myself, I will always, always, always prefer to have what I'm doing wrong shouted in my face than to let people seethe behind the scenes. If I don't know what someone's issue with me is, I can't do anything to correct it.

_________________
Jedi Master Tir-Jin Meteos, The Order of 66
PC GAMER - T.J. Hafer

I really hope that the guild can deliver good experiences for everyone. From my standpoint (also not an officer), I think the officers work hard, we just have to be a bit flexible.

As for the pvp part, you may have trouble early in pvp as people are getting geared up and know the tactics and strategies of each specific warzone. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't pvp, or are going to get destroyed. You should check out pvp for yourself and make a decision. Also, we have been doing pvp segments on the podcast lately so that everyone can get up to speed on pvp and what to expect.

As for RP nights, I think TJ has done a great job on them so far, and I'm sorry if anyone was ignored. This week looks to be very exciting, and I'm also working on one that will take us to flashpoints if it goes as planned.

I hope we can all communicate better and continue to improve things. I know we are all looking for somewhat different things, but it is good to talk about what we all are looking for so we can make things better.

_________________
You're good, but you're no Luke Skywalker - Wedge Antilles
You're good, but you're no Wes Janson - Wes Janson

Dragonmann's Grand Unified Guild Theory

Long ago in a Texas reasonably far away from me an idea sprang forth, nascent in its youth, and resulting in such anathema as Vader ordering Chinese. This idea became d20 Radio, and eventually the Gamer Nation.

The Gamer Nation community as a whole has always been a place where the typical trolling, and flame wars, and dare I say Chocolate-Douche-With-Extra-Peanut mongering that is typical of so many other gaming communities has never taken root. We don't all sit in a circle and sing "Kumbya, Gygax", but we always treat each other with respect.

Then some tiny unknown company announced an equally tiny unknown game title to be released. One of those silly MMO thingies taking place in the Star Wars universe. And there was much rejoicing. Across the gamer nation little hearts squeed in glee at the thought of beating down baddies with a glowbat, or pounding them into oblivion with massive firepower. And visions of star fighters danced in their heads.

But lo, deep down there was a problem waiting to be discovered. Amazingly enough, different people like different things. How could this be? Aren't all members of the gamer nation clones? OHNOES!!! The horror. How could one game appeal to long time MMO players and newbies, to PVPers and RPers, to Hardcore and Casual Players, to males and females, to tall people and short... you get the point, I hope.

Despite all that, the Gamer Nation heeded a call to join this guild, THIS guild because it would be an extension of the community that was artificially inseminated way back in paragraph one. And something potentially special was created, a Grand Unified Guild.

Most guilds are not Grand Unified Guilds. They function as a collection of similar people, with similar interests. It could be a guild for Endgame master monkeys, or RP nazis, or Altaholics. Sometimes the time zone brings people together, or the Casual/Hardcore lifestyle choice. I have known of guilds that are all female players because for some reason they get tired of being hit on every time they come into Vent.

But this is a Grand Unified Guild. We have all those people. All of them, and a dozen more I can't come up with witty designations for. And we have them spread across the globe, well sort of, US and Europe with more coming soon.

So what does a Grand Unified Guild do? EVERYTHING!!!

But not necessarily well.

We are a community where we can all put aside our differences, grab our glow bats and have a good time. Well most of us.

So wherein lies the rub, as they say?

Just like that other Grand Unified Theory, things have a tendency to change when you go from small to big, or big to small, or that awkward place in the middle.

If your Grand Unified Guild is small, everyone expects to do their own thing. They know that their friends list is going to be the place they get into Endgame or RP or competitive crocheting or what have you, and the guild forms a family unit. Just the people you want to say "Hey everybody, I just earned a level!" (Translation to Jawa: WUUTINI)

If your Grand Unified Guild is large, it becomes an overarching structure in which virtual sub-guilds exist. Raiding teams, the Wednesday night RP fiends, those funny smelling crafting guys who have all their skills maxed out while still level 10.

But when you are middle sized, unfortunately for you Goldilocks, it is most certainly not "Just Right". The Guild is too small to support sub-guild structures, there is too much overlap, people being emotionally pulled in more directions than a customized tramp freighter being hauled in by multiple tractor beams on a moon sized space station. But it is too large for people to reasonably be expected to do their own thing, while still contributing to the family culture.

The Order of Sixty Six, sorry "TheOrderOfSixtySix", is in the middle category. Too big to be small and happy, too small to be fat and happy.

And in response, the guild has made some really awesome (read 'not awesome at all' since I don't have a sarcasm font) moves to encourage people to be even more social and close.

• Guild leadership has stated they (paraphrasing) don't want to be in control, they want to be guides
• People have been chastised in guild chat and then again on the forums for "Spoilers" in a MMO, instead of encouraging everyone to talk to each other about everything
• The guild leadership responded to the above by coming up with a policy that amounted to "keep doing what you're doing until this blows over"
• Player's abilities have been ridiculed, again in the open, on the forums
• Events are consistently scheduled for PST time, despite people living throughout the global SWTOR market
• The WWBT quickly boiled down to lets beat up the same "guy" we took down last week, rapidly reducing interest
• We created a Republic and Imperial guild at the same time, splitting at least some people's focus

So what do you get?

You get people like me who won't say a thing in guild chat, period, to avoid drama. Yeah the story on world <spoiler> is <spoiler> and <spoiler><spoiler>, you can't wait to get there... Screw that.

You get people trying to start events at 10:30 EST. (like last night, wonder if people actually did the fleet datacron run after I logged off to go to bed?)

You get hurt feelings, recrimination, and other fun dysfunctional family habits.

And oh yeah, you get one guy quitting, and another guy saying he is going to quit too if the guild doesn't meet his particular world view.

_________________


Gamer, Geek, Enginseer, Battle Mechanik, Inquisitor, Warcaster, and Evil Overlord
Dragonmann

/DeepBreath


I feel like we've already been over this. I've explained my side of the story, I heard the other side, and I felt like everyone was cool with just dropping it. I'm sorry to hear that was not the case.


Honestly, when I read this comment, do you want to know what I think? I think, "Here is someone who has decided that the guild leadership are his enemies." Maybe that's not the way you meant it, but that's the way that it comes off.

If I'm not allowed to provide constructive criticism (and going out of my way not to name names, at that) to help guildies have a more fun time in game by being effective at end-game content without being accused of "ridiculing" them, then maybe I shouldn't be involved in Operations at all.

I am assuming of course, you're referring to my fundamentals thread. If this is in reference to something else, I apologize. But that was the one bullet in your post that came across to me as, at the least, unfairly worded.

If I may quote something from the "Spoilergate" thread that really got me thinking...


All I really want is for the people in this guild to trust that no one else in the guild is out to ruin anyone else's fun. That is the 100% heartfelt truth, at least from where I am standing. May George strike me down (or at least ruin one of my best scenes with a "Special Edition") if I'm lying.

It pains me that we have drama of this level in the first place, and I think it comes from some sort of perception that certain "sects" of the guild are the adversaries of others (Spoilers vs No Spoilers, Raiders vs Non-Raiders, Officers vs Members, etc.) I would cast myself into the Sarlacc Pit before I would do anything deliberately to hurt or inconvenience anyone in this community. Does that mean I'm perfect and I'll never hurt any feelings by accident? No. But I beg you to come to me directly if you have an issue with anything I, personally, have done or said, so we can work it out like friends that trust one-another.

We are having some issues right now. That's to be expected. But just imagine how much smoother we could work them out if everyone just took a step back and adopted a more positive mindset.

_________________
Jedi Master Tir-Jin Meteos, The Order of 66
PC GAMER - T.J. Hafer

Actually it would me more like the other guy stating the obvious in order to get things moving. When you log into the game and realize that pretty much everything you get from your guild you could get the same when not being part of any guild, red lights go off.



This is the entire point of this thread. Let's try and talk about how we can make things work better. I didn't post this to start a flame war or to have people start pointing fingers.

Dragonmann, I agree with you 100% down to this line: "And in response, the guild has made some really awesome (read 'not awesome at all' since I don't have a sarcasm font) moves to encourage people to be even more social and close."

This guild exists entirely because of Gamer Nation. We have a great community here, and when SWTOR was announced, the guild followed naturally.

However, as DM Tim quoted above, “We aim to have fun first and foremost with as little drama as possible.”

This is where the challenge starts. As you state, “Amazingly enough, different people like different things.”

So in the spirit of community, let me walk through each of your examples, offer my perspective, and see where that leads us. (No, I'm not trying to say I'm right or anything like that - just having an open dialogue.)

• Guild leadership has stated they (paraphrasing) don't want to be in control, they want to be guides

How do you regulate fun, when fun means something different to every person? Short answer – you don’t. Any rules created – almost by definition – will mean less fun for someone. And since fun is our #1 mandate, we try to avoid adding to the guild rules as much as possible.

• People have been chastised in guild chat and then again on the forums for "Spoilers" in a MMO, instead of encouraging everyone to talk to each other about everything
• The guild leadership responded to the above by coming up with a policy that amounted to "keep doing what you're doing until this blows over"

Spoilers in guild chat was resolved; we have a rule for it now. The rule specifically erred on the side of keeping social chat going (with the exception of “major I-am-your-father type spoilers). We just ask that you respect each other enough to stop discussing things if asked by a fellow guildmate.

Spoilers on the forums – I have yet to see anything there, but then I personally avoid threads that look like they contain spoilers. I have not seen anyone chastised though, so I will have to ask around about it (or if you would like to PM me, please do).

• Player's abilities have been ridiculed, again in the open, on the forums

I am hoping here that some constructive criticism was misinterpreted. However, I apologize regardless. I think we’ve all seen on the forums as well as guild chat that sometimes words mean different things to different people, since we don’t get non-verbal cues along with text.

• Events are consistently scheduled for PST time, despite people living throughout the global SWTOR market

That I can’t say I’ve noticed. Anything I’ve done has been CST scheduled. But I encourage you to ask for an alternate time, if there is an event scheduled you’d like to be a part of that is consistently at a time that you can’t make. Or go one further and schedule your own event.


• The WWBT quickly boiled down to lets beat up the same "guy" we took down last week, rapidly reducing interest

Well, depending on the levels of the players involved, I could see where that would happen. There are only so many world bosses appropriate to different level groups.


• We created a Republic and Imperial guild at the same time, splitting at least some people's focus

Yes indeed. I love the Imperial side. It’s a very fun place as well. I guess I would say this is not so much “splitting people’s focus” as it is people playing the game the way they choose to.

Thoughts?

~~~~~~

In general, I would like to thank everyone for contributing to this thread.

We want everyone to enjoy their time in game. Fun is the name of the game. End of story.

We realize that the members of the guild find joy in very different aspects of the game - and have very different amounts of time available to play.

Having a guild that is united by a community rather than dedicated to a particular aspect of an MMO (RP, PVP, end level content, etc) is somewhat atypical, so we welcome input about how to improve things.

However, we also are very conscious that any changes we make have to work for the majority of people, and will tend to err on the side of favoring the casual player because that's what most people in the guild are.

We'll see where this discussion takes us.

_________________
Listen to me play on the Real Gamers podcast
http://realgamerspodcast.blogspot.com/

Before I chime in with a view or two (as I'm just checking this thread while I print off delicious tax receipts from school, mmm student tax returns...) I'd like to just comment that I'm glad to see this discussion out in the open.

I don't really see this as overly dramatic or anything like that, if there are concerns they need to be brought into the light, discussed, and hopefully resolved. There is emotional investment here - that will happen from time to time, but like TJ said no one here is wanting to spoil anyone elses fun, so I hope everyone feels comfortable saying their piece - its not going to get held against anyone.

_________________
Order of Sixtysix Officer - The Old Republic - Master of Life
Casual Play and Quality of Life
Have Your say about Your Guild - PM me with Feedback/Concerns or in game as Markess