Well, I was gonna inaugurate tonight with a test drive.

Balancing is clearly going to be a lil' trickay, hence the feelout. So I'll be signing on in a bit to maybe start seeing how things come together for the UK timezone.

Hi everyone,

Thanks to the positive response to my previous post, I'm happy to announce that we are officially going ahead with the setup for the new Stonewall literary RP, the working title of which is Starbase Diversity. The RP will focus on Starbase Diversity, which is the main holding of Stonewall Fleet, the personnel on the starbase and ships throughout the fleet that interact with the base and undertake fleet missions.

Myself and Ozy are currently setting up the website for the RP. Please bear with us while we get everything ready. It can be a bit of a mammoth task as there is a lot to do to prepare it, but it will all be worth it in the end.

When we start off with the RP, there will be three areas of play, namely:

1. Starbase Operations
2. Starship Operations
3. Fleet Embassy

1. Starbase Operations:

Starbase Operations will focus on the crew of the starbase. I will be playing the commanding officer of the starbase (with an as yet undecided character) who will oversee the operation of the starbase and its different departments, which will be:

• Tactical
• Security
• Operations
• Engineering
• Science
• Medical

Any of you familiar with the typical Starfleet departmental setup will know what the job of each department, so I'm not going to elaborate on that. But, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Those of you who are interested in applying as starbase personnel can go ahead and think about what position you'd like so long and what you're character would be like. We will need department heads as well for those departments, so if you'd like to play a department head, please let me know. DH's will typically be of rank LtCmdr or Lt, while the rest of the staff will consist of junior officers, enlisted personnel and/or civilians.

If you are considering playing a starbase position, please note that we would require you to participate in writing a post once per week, or at minimum once per fortnight. Those who would like to be department heads should definitely be available to post once per week.


2. Starship Operations

Starship Operations is the category where those of you who would like to write about your ship and crew fall into. You will be able to join the RP as a Starship Commanding Officer and add your bridge crew as NPCs. Those in Starship Operations may write as little or as much as they please, but we ask that if you are participating in a fleet-wide mission or story/plot, that you consider whether or not you have the time to do so before committing yourself, so as not to hold up the other roleplayers.

There will be some limitations to this divion, however. Starship CO's will be limited to the rank of Captain or Commander for the sake of the RP in order to keep things on a more realistic level. So, in other words, it will not be a direct reflection of your in-game rank. Also, we ask that those who want to RP as Starship Commanding Officers select a main ship which should preferably be a Starfleet ship. If you'd like to play, for instance, with your Dominion ship or Cardassian ship and captain, you should consider joining the diplomatic delegation of that species/government (explained below in Embassy section) or being an independent trader captain.


3. Fleet Embassy

The Embassy on New Romulus will be the diplomatic arm of the RP. There will be stationed a Fleet Diplomatic Officer as well as ambassadors and representatives from various governments and delegations. These positions are all intended to be playable (though they can be NPC as well), so if you're interested in the diplomatic side, feel free to let me know.

The Starbase and the Embassy will interact regularly and the starbase will rotate support personnel (like medical, operations, etc.) on a regular basis so that officers get the chance to visit New Romulus, serve in the Embassy for a short period of time, and then return.
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We are thinking of ideas of how to include the Klingon side as well, although we might not get going with that right off the bat. If Cryptic adds more fleet holdings in the future, we will try to think of new ways to include that as well. (Such as the rumoured new Romulan mini-faction.)

We don't have a launch date in mind yet, but we are moving as quickly as possible to get everything ready. If you have any questions, whether it be about positions, the different gameplay divisions, or just about the RP in general, please feel free to send me a message or post it in this thread.

Thank you all very much! I will be posting another update soon.

Bren

is anyone doing a european one?

It’s no secret that I haven’t dedicated the time to Guild Wars 2, since getting to level cap, that I had intended to before launch. It’s also no secret that the guild may have been adversely affected by having an absent leader and for that I can only apologize and try to explain the reasons as best I can.

I wanted a Stonewall guild in Guild Wars 2 and I brought the idea to our community leader and founder, NicholasJohn, and almost demanded that he allowed me to push ahead with it. I did it selfishly so that I would be able to play the game, which I saw as the greatest MMORPG of the past ten years, without having to turn my back on a great community and join another guild which has policies that differ from those I believe in.

Building up to launch I think Vanguard did amazing and being able to hit 200 accounts in-game and max out the influence rewards was a great achievement and something we should be proud of. But the game failed to live up to the high expectations that I had put upon it and ArenaNet shifted focus onto dungeon running / carrot on a stick content which is something that has zero interest for myself.

I wasn’t alone in feeling this way and my Majors and Commanders one by one disappeared from the game and I was left trying to pull together a team to keep things going. The reponse to my requests for help in running things wasn’t exactly stellar and at this moment in time we have two active commanders, one of which shares my disillusions and only logs in to carry out guild duties and/or dailies and Elquin who has done a fantastic job trying to run events and I have expressed my gratitude to him.

All of the Majors and Commanders I have appointed since creating the guild have been asked to do something which I have never been good at, which is running events. All of them, bar Elquin, didn’t end up filling the role like I’d hoped. You may think it’s a major flaw that a guild leader shouldn’t have and I would agree with you but if I didn’t sit in the big chair then nobody would have. I took the leadership role because I was the only choice and I think up until our membership started to decline I did a .. acceptable job at keeping things running smoothly but the games end-game didn’t lend itself to guilds and if you look around the web you’ll see the scattered corpses of many failed guilds which didn’t cope once they reached end-game.

I can’t force our members to represent us and I can’t force them to login on a regular basis. My name carries no weight in this regard and me simply being online isn’t going to affect our membership numbers.

In regards to the phaser comment, some of our members did come from Star Trek Online and have returned there but it’s not as many as you’d think. I login now and again but it’s very much a seldom occasion that I sail the stars. I have been jumping from game to game from free-to-play MMORPG to free-to-play MMORPG trying to pass the time, waiting for ArenaNet to fix the problems with the game that I see.

Large scale guild events could give us something to do on-mass at least once a week if that’s what it turns out to be. But how am I meant to plan? how am I meant to schedule anything when ArenaNet only detail a patch once it’s actually in the game. I can’t make and I don’t make promises that I can’t be sure I’m going to keep. I have done and always will continue to be as honest and open as possible and I simply can’t guarantee things are going to get better.

I stand by my word that if you feel you need to leave for your enjoyment to continue then you can. I would hold nothing against you for it as it’s your hard earned money you spend and it’s your enjoyment which is paramount. If you stay then you’ll probably end up doing what I have been doing for the past few months. Crossing my fingers and hoping that the next patch actually improves things in a real way and doesn’t add more small-scale carrot-on-a-stick content.

I should also mention that I happen to be British and that puts me at a direct disadvantage when trying to organise events for NA players. I have commitments in my everyday life and it makes it hard for me to promise I’m going to lead an event seven days before it’s due to run. Honestly I wish I could but it’s just not how my life is right now and staying up all night and going to work tired isn’t an option for the job that I do.

I wish I could do better. I wish that I did better. But this is the state of affairs and once again I can only apologize for failing you and Vanguard.

Quote by Halish

Really hope this is a fully fleshed out feature! :)

So Hal, hypothetically speaking of course, if it is as we hope it will be a fully fleshed out feature does that mean you will be more of a presence for us in GW2 and or possibly leading these events?

My intention is not to single you out like this but you are the real leader of GW2. Though Elquin has done absolutely incredible work lately putting together stuff for us to do and making a truly honest effort to get GW2 guild members to participate in things, he does not have your title or your influence. As an indirect result of not being you....he struggles to put a handful of people together for anything that happens and if not a full group he has to invite outside of guild and this is happening more and more frequently and is almost common now.

I know you have discussed this with me and other members that we were free to move on to more active guilds but very welcome to stay members of SWVG for chat purposes....okay that's very nice and appreciated but the feelings created prior to GW2's release leave me conflicted about said offer.

What was a lot of people in the beginning ready to tear this game up being lead by you has turned into 3-4 people struggling in the game to keep the concept of a SWVG GW2 Guild alive and breathing. I'm proud to wear our guild's skin/crest but somehow I can't escape feeling small and insignificant running around out there...this makes me downhearted most of the time.

I want to feel excited about this change that will help guilds do more together but if you and your buddies are not going to put your phasers down often enough to support this....then "fleshed out" will ultimately become a mute point.

ps: for lack of my own inflection abilities this may sound condescending or accusatory. Far from it....I only wish to convey my feelings in a direct way and be as respectful and understanding of your needs and wants also. I can't force you to play a game that your and your friends are not fully dedicated to...(now on our side of the fence)...how do we wear our crest and maintain pride in our guild in game and represent our guild...when the leader is not with us?

On a side note, whenever I look for stuff like that, I right-click on the program icon and look at the properties. That usually gives me a good starting point for finding what I'm after.

Sounds good Ereiid, now just a matter of setting a day. Whether this week or something.

Quote by SBOSlayer

OMG... this would be a blood bath. Dominion ships are a bit OP :P

However, sounds fun :P So lets set it up. I'll pm u to discuss tomorrow :)

Dont forget that some on the dom side will suck at pvp

OMG... this would be a blood bath. Dominion ships are a bit OP :P

However, sounds fun :P So lets set it up. I'll pm u to discuss tomorrow :)

Quote by Six-of-Nine

What I would like to consider is to have optional fleet uniform variants. The variants could include locked parts, for example, we could have an official stonewall fleet academy color scheme for the academy uniform, or the racing uniform, or the vet stuff, or maco/honor guard/omega, etc.

This way, the fleet dress formal (class A) would be available to all, as well a class B duty uniform, both used with free costumes, and we could then vote on the official variants for those who have the unlocks and wish to submit.

Win/Win

I don't think that would be possible to do in-game with the current restrictions, but I suppose it's not a bad idea in general. We'd still need to pick an official in-game version, though.

Quote by Six-of-Nine

What I would like to consider is to have optional fleet uniform variants. The variants could include locked parts, for example, we could have an official stonewall fleet academy color scheme for the academy uniform, or the racing uniform, or the vet stuff, or maco/honor guard/omega, etc.

This way, the fleet dress formal (class A) would be available to all, as well a class B duty uniform, both used with free costumes, and we could then vote on the official variants for those who have the unlocks and wish to submit.

Win/Win

Agreed an class a, b and maybe c. The military dose it, we can do it.

Chem do we get cat glasses, and knit yarn miniskirts?

I thinks its pushes our creativity ... so its not bad to think about a new one! It's time for a new contest! :P

According to the article, it is not going to be an MMO.

I would do this for sure, in JHAS Galor Chel Gret, or appropriate fed/kdf ship.

I might do this.

Bumpity bump, with two timeslots!

First session: 5p EST (10p GMT) to help cover our UK contigent

Second session: 10p EST (6p PST) for North America!

'Zat cool with you, Traull?

RPG's generally aren't MMO's and this has been described as being pitched as an RPG but that is certainly a very good question!

the question I want answered is if it will be a MMO or not

Quote by Six-of-Nine

What I would like to consider is to have optional fleet uniform variants. The variants could include locked parts, for example, we could have an official stonewall fleet academy color scheme for the academy uniform, or the racing uniform, or the vet stuff, or maco/honor guard/omega, etc.

Don't forget the Retro Future variant, where everyone dresses in miniskirts and beehive hairdos!

Basically, I want to have a fleet composed entirely of 60s girl groups. Is that so wrong?

What I would like to consider is to have optional fleet uniform variants. The variants could include locked parts, for example, we could have an official stonewall fleet academy color scheme for the academy uniform, or the racing uniform, or the vet stuff, or maco/honor guard/omega, etc.

This way, the fleet dress formal (class A) would be available to all, as well a class B duty uniform, both used with free costumes, and we could then vote on the official variants for those who have the unlocks and wish to submit.

Win/Win