Episode 495 - Voyager - "Lifesigns" - 02/26/1996

http://www.allstepisodes.com/megvid.php?n=4219

The Doctor helps a Phage-ridden Vidiian woman.

Enjoy!

I voted for Stonewall Union. That sounded coolest. :P

This is actually what the Holocron section is for.

Thanks for the tip, JustJon. I actually have been using that along the way, though a lot of times I forget about it. I STILL don't get some of the things on there, but usually those have to do with those Lore Markers...the glowing blue placards. Those are the hardest to get for me personally. I never know where they are. I'm so focused on datacrons that once my character is leveled all the way up, I'll go back and start filling in the blanks.

Yeah, I cannot commit days and times, but as a rule of thumb, I am usually on in the evenings, from 1700-1900 EST and / or 2100-2300 EST.

On weekends, the times I am on are very erratic, but I seem to be consistently on in the mornings (Sat/Sun) and evenings (Sat/Sun).

Cheers.

And on that note... lol.

I have now posted the Knights of Stonewall Update here. I'd like to apologise for the delay, it's a message from all the officers, and needed to be accurate and up to date.

I have really enjoyed the open and honest nature of the debate in this thread, I'd like to thank everyone who took part. I'm ready to announce the results:

Drum roll, please...

We have had 24 individual members post their opinion on the creation of Soldiers of Stonewall as our solution to the guild limit problem.

17 members posted in favour of the solution.
6 members posted in opposition to the solution.
1 member abstained.

I know this is thread was not a vote and I am not trying to trivialize the serious nature of this situation. (I am having mental images of everyone scanning the thread to check my figures though).

I will hold my hands up and admit that we were unprepared for the strength of feeling and opposition this decison whould provoke. We never intended the explanation to those online in-game of why some officers were leaving the the guild to help create another guild to be seen as an announcement. I'm glad that we were able to have this debate though and I can assure everyone that the officers have taken this experience to heart and will try to be more up front with our plans in future.

This thread was created to discuss the member limit solution of creating a seperate, but equal, guild for Trooper and Smuggler class characters. That debate seems to have changed to a discussion of the general competency of the current officers, and is no longer about the original topic. For that reason I am locking this thread.

We have no problem with open and honest criticism of our decisions and I encourage anyone to contact me at anytime via PM to discuss my shortcomings. However, public attempts to undermine and insult the very people who devote their free time to helping all the members of this community stops now.

I've checked that every question asked has been answered, and that a full account of the state of the guild has been posted. I realise that locking a debate thread will attract more criticism, and I know how unfair it is to be able to post the "final word" in a thread. Please direct that criticism to me directly and I will answer you all.

Finally, I'd just like to say... Large communities cannot vote on every issue. Democracies use representatives to act in the best interests of the community. While we base the position of officer on ability and willingness rather that elected popularity, I think the idea is clear. We will try to involve everyone as best we can in the day to day running of Knights of Stonewall, but the best way to make a difference is to volunteer to become an officer. We are currently accepting applications, so check out the "Council Chamber" forum for details.

Thank you all.

Quote by kiddkasper

I have read through the 15 pages that exist before my post here. I agree that there are issues that need to be looked at and addressed.

However, this entire thread was started 2 days and 16 hours ago. If I'm not entirely mistaken, the actual guild split hasn't even been announced or implemented yet. Yes, some people got wind of it and have commented on it. Nick, as well as officers have commented in this thread trying to answer some of the concerns. However, Zep hasn't made any official announcement.

Sometimes people act impulsively out of an emotional reaction to a situation or a perceived situation. I'm guilty of this too at times. To anyone, I would ask that they try to wait until Zepari has made an official announcement about the split and about the issues that people have brought up before they make any decisions about what they should do.

Just wanted to give kudos to Kidd, he's been amazing on the Imperial side. I completely agree with what was said, folks need to take a step back and see what the final outcome is.
Don't leave the guild now, we've only been discussing this for 2 days and by the looks of it nothing seems to be set in stone.

Welcome everyone to what I hope will be the first of many regular “State of the Guild” posts for the Knights of Stonewall. As I’m sure you’ve all seen, we have been making some changes in the guild to adapt to the game and the bigger than expected interest in Knights of Stonewall. I just want to go through some of the updates and information on the guild. For those of you who have played with Stonewall Fleet in Star Trek Online most of this will not be a shock, but I hope these updates will help everyone in Knights of Stonewall feel right at home and up to date with what’s going on.


Naming Convention

I know some people are a little confused about the identity of the overall guild and the in-game guilds in relation to the names. We use the same naming system we used in Star Trek Online with Stonewall Fleet, Deep Space Stonewall and House of Nagh reD (Stone wall). As you can see, it is the name Stonewall which defines our community, not the other words in the title. If you haven’t had a chance, please read Nick’s article at the top of the front page to find out why. Our current in-game guilds are:

Knights of Stonewall – The Republic guild for Jedi Knights and Jedi Consulars.
Soldiers of Stonewall – The Republic guild for Troopers and Smugglers
Lords of Stonewall – The Empire guild for all classes.

Once Lords of Stonewall reaches the member limit we currently plan to create another guild for Bounty hunters and Imperial Agents. Thankfully that is not urgent.

The name of our SW:TOR guild is Knights of Stonewall, that is the guild you are a member of and the name of our website since day one.

Logically, when the the SW:TOR website allowed guild creation, we also named our in-game guild, Knights of Stonewall. We could not have the same name for more than one guild and clearly "Knights" was an inappropriate name for the Imperial Faction, so "Lords of Stonewall" was born as the name of our guild on the Imperial side. In spite of the differing name, this didn't make members with mains in Lords second class members in Stonewall.

When we ran into the inevitible problem of running out of space for new invites on the Republic side, we needed a new "guild" to give us room to grow within the game's existing mechanics. That's why Soldiers of Stonewall was born, along with plans for a similar guild on the Imperial side when the time came.

While "Knights of Stonewall" is the gateway, and name of our guild as a whole, the guild names within the game itself seemed the most logical way of creating co-equal guilds as a continuation of the limits already imposed by the game.

In conclusion, we should all see the in-game guild "Knights of Stonewall" as no greater and no lesser than "Lords of Stonewall," "Soldiers of Stonewall," or the yet-to-be named Imperial guild of Stonewall. These are seen only as logical ways of organizing characters. Every character belongs to a member (the people) of the Knights of Stonewall.

I hope this clears up any confusion.


Soldiers of Stonewall

We have had a healthy, lively and informative debate raging in the Cantina about how we have decided to cope with the member limit in the in-game guilds. The officers explained the reasoning behind the decision on how to handle the member limit in the forums already and I would just like to reinterate why the other options posed were considered and rejected as unsuitable for the majority of our members:

We didn't have time to wait for a guild wide survey as we were fast approaching the guild limit and we don't want to have to turn anyone away.

We don't want to impose any draconian entrance requirements that limit who can join as that goes against the Stonewall ethos of non-discrimination.

The overflow idea of having anyone who joins from now on put into a different guild was also discounted as we had done that with STO and found that we were segregating the real life members rather than just their characters. We don't want to seperate players from their friends, and there is currently no in-game advantages based on what guild a character is in.

We couldn't introduce a minimum activity requirement of two months or even one month as all the characters are less than a month old.

As guild banks will be the first guild feature to become available, the items placed there will be most useful to characters of the same class.

The two choices we were left with were to level band the guilds so that when a member reached a high level they would be entitled to join an "elite" character guild, or the current choice. We chose the class banding because level banding would only postpone the problem until we had too many high level characters to fit in one guild and then we would face this problem all over again.

Despite the drawbacks, class banding seemed the best decision as it was the most permanent and most logistically achievable in the long term.

Therefore, Soldiers of Stonewall is the Republic guild for Trooper and Smuggler class characters. We will try to invite new characters to the correct guild, but I want to stress that moving your current Troopers or Smugglers from Knights of Stonewall to Soldiers of Stonewall is optional. However, it would be in everyone's best interest to be in the correct guild before the guild bank system is introduced. We believe that of all the options for coping with the member limit, this was the best choice to relieve the pressure on Knights of Stonewall and also the most “future proof”. I also want to stress that this solution is not set in stone and as Bioware update the in-game guild system and add new features we will revisit this choice and, with the help of the entire guild, decide the best way to adapt.

If you would like your Trooper or Smuggler transferred to Soldiers of Stonewall, just ask in the “Stonewall” invite channel.


In-game Ranks

We currently have 4 ingame ranks:
Recruit – for players invited to the guild who have not yet let us know who they are by setting their Member Note as their KnightsofStonewall.com username.
Member – For members of KnightsofStonewall.com.
Captains – For volunteers who have offered to help with invites and help their fellow members.
Officer – For leaders of the guild with a specific area of responsibility.

There is currently no difference in access or permission between the Recruit and Member, but once guild banks are introduced it may be necessary to deny Recruits access to the bank for security. The reason for this is that the game has no common identifier for players, and it is impossible to know who any character is unless they tell you, we would like to avoid non-members taking items from members. I would encourage everybody to ensure they have their username set as their Member Note on all their characters. It should take no more than 24 hours for an officer to promote you to the correct rank once that is done.


In-game Chat Channels

With the launch of Soldiers of Stonewall we have been using the Stonewall custom channel on the Republic side for guild wide communication. However, a member made an excellent point in the Cantina forum about having a specific invite channel, and although that was not our original intention, we have decided to adopt this suggestion. We think that as the Stonewall channel was originally used for invites and communication with players outside the guild, it would be simpler to revert to using it for this purpose and create a new social channel on each side that will be specifically for members only.

The added bonus would be that members can socialise and chat about the game with fellow members without being interrupted by invite requests and the responses to invite requests from officers and captains. Members should not need to have the Stonewall channel visible from now on, unless requesting an invite, and officers and captains can set that channel to a bright colour so they never miss an invite request. Our current in-game chat channels are:

KoS – (/cjoin KoS) – For guild wide, member only, social communication and general help requests on the Republic side.
LoS – (/cjoin LoS) - For guild wide, member only, social communication and general help requests on the Empire side.
Stonewall – for invite requests and players who are not members of KnightsofStonewall.com

Some things still to be decided include whether to “lock” the KoS/LoS channels (once all current members have joined) to ensure privacy and whether we should disable the “Guild” chat channel to ensure that characters are not segregated socially. I will start a thread in the Cantina forum shortly to get input and advice from the whole guild on these decisions.

Officers and Captains

We are currently looking for volunteers to become officers in the Knights of Stonewall. If you would like to help make the guild a better place and help shape the direction of the guild, then you can find all the information you need here. The closing date for applications is this Thursday and the officers will be chosen based only on their application and announced on Saturday.

We now have 18 Captains, who have multiple characters and play at different times, which will hopefully solve the problem some people were having of being unable to get an invite. There still may be occasions when no-one is available to invite a new character, but please be patient, and if you would like to help by becoming a Captain, you can find details here. I’d like to thank each and every one of our Captains for volunteering to help everyone in the guild at the expense of their own play time!


Member meetings

I would like to start holding guild wide meetings on a monthly basis to allow members to have more input into the running of the guild. The times and dates of these meeting is still to be decided and will vary from month to month as we don’t want to always hold them at a specific day and time that some members might never be able to attend. We will post an announcement of the meeting a week in advance in the forums to allow anyone to post what topics they would like to discuss. This will also allow other members who can’t attend to see what is happening and post their comments.


Finally I’d like to thank some people. I’d like to thank Doogiegood and Aldente for their tireless work in what was a very difficult month for the guild. They put us all to shame over the holiday period by taking care of everyone, Thank you. I’d also like to thank all the members for bearing with us and being so patient. The launch of a new game is never easy, especially during such a difficult time of year, but I’m so proud of the way everyone pulled together and reminded me of why I joined Stonewall back in 2009 and why I'm still here. Thank you.

Zepari

Just a tip for people who like to complete everything important on a planet before leaving or at some point. If you open your codex and pick the planet it should look something like this.



If you click the magnifying glass it will change it to look like this...



This way you can see if you have gotten all important things marked in the location!

Hope this helps out some people =)

Quote by DakonKor

Jon...

I think this is a great idea! Once we get the information together, if you're okay with it, I can add this data to each person's entry on the Leadership thread.

That is fine with me it will keep things organized and easier to find in the future.

Quote by Justjon

What I'd like:
Someone to explain what the heck is going on! I don't mean hey let's throw a post here. I mean make a post take an initiative to communicate. Inform us of why everything happened up until this point and what is being done to resolve it. (that is what you do in true clean up of messes)

UPDATE: Knights of Stonewall Update - January 2012 here.

Zep has been hard at work at a "State of the Guild" post. Since the post represents all of the Officers, he wanted the sign off from all of them. While I very well understand that we, as gamers are used to instant gratification, it is a small challenge (but one we need to deal with) when we are split into time zones nearly half a day apart.

My understanding is that Zep has every intention for the official post to go up at some point today.

I have read through the 15 pages that exist before my post here. I agree that there are issues that need to be looked at and addressed.

However, this entire thread was started 2 days and 16 hours ago. If I'm not entirely mistaken, the actual guild split hasn't even been announced or implemented yet. Yes, some people got wind of it and have commented on it. Nick, as well as officers have commented in this thread trying to answer some of the concerns. However, Zep hasn't made any official announcement.

Sometimes people act impulsively out of an emotional reaction to a situation or a perceived situation. I'm guilty of this too at times. To anyone, I would ask that they try to wait until Zepari has made an official announcement about the split and about the issues that people have brought up before they make any decisions about what they should do.

1) Karrg (C'mon, he's rocking the "Kris Kringon" look)
2) Grayson
3) Counselor

I'm on Thursay night through Sunday morning as much as I can. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance with anything. I am Dendaius on the Empire side.

Quote by cruist22

Quote by Justjon

I actually quoted that from page 10 of the thread
http://www.knightsofstonewall.com/forums/cantina/38410-splitting-kos-into-sub-guilds?limit=6&start=54#38545

Which is why an official post should have been made somewhere as the information scattered in this one isn't helping anyone.

Yes, that's less than 24 hours ago.

Oh haha I dont know my days tend to blend.

Quote by Justjon

I actually quoted that from page 10 of the thread
http://www.knightsofstonewall.com/forums/cantina/38410-splitting-kos-into-sub-guilds?limit=6&start=54#38545

Which is why an official post should have been made somewhere as the information scattered in this one isn't helping anyone.

Yes, that's less than 24 hours ago.

I actually quoted that from page 10 of the thread
http://www.knightsofstonewall.com/forums/cantina/38410-splitting-kos-into-sub-guilds?limit=6&start=54#38545

Which is why an official post should have been made somewhere as the information scattered in this one isn't helping anyone.

Quote by Justjon

Since those who aren't happy with it aren't being forced to move and those who were willing to assist have moved making room for more Knight/Consulars everyone should be happy.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

The switch won't be forced or required. We'll simply be asking those willing to switch their non-force characters over to Soldiers of Stonewall.

That quote was only communicated today and along with your official comment above, it labels anyone who's not a force wielder and refusing to switch as "non cooperative/not willing to assit" member. Translation: "jerks". I didn't want to be labeled as a jerk and didn't want to wait till being kicked out so I left. But I will never join anything with a name "soldier" on it so I'm left in limbo.

Quote by intristin

So anyever, I will be pulling both of my toons from the guild. I love you all and will miss you. To all my buddies, I'll be on the server so you know how to get in touch with me.

I honestly don't know how much farther behind you I am with that. I will be honest in saying it bugs me there still hasn't been an official statement just a whole bunch of them here and there about this on this thread.

There really has been no explanation officially other than rumored (which I hate) as to what happened with the leadership. I'm really trying to help and stick this out but if the guilds going to built around drama in the first few weeks that doesn't seem to be addressed itself. I'm not really sure if I'd want to be a part of it.


My Recap:
What I've gathered so far is a whole bunch of leadership screwed the other leadership that were here by not being here (which honestly not a good start). Then the other leadership got overwhelmed with too much to do so they banded together together to try to fix it all (which is awesome but we were affected too). So then a member gets wind of a new guild the beans get spilled and I think 15 pages later the mess continues to be cleaned up.

What I'd like:
Someone to explain what the heck is going on! I don't mean hey let's throw a post here. I mean make a post take an initiative to communicate. Inform us of why everything happened up until this point and what is being done to resolve it. (that is what you do in true clean up of messes)

I don't think anyone expected our guild to grow so quickly. Until Bioware decides to remove the 500 members limit, we either split the guild or we stop creating alts. I only have one toon above level 1 at the moment, so i'm glad i'll still be able to join the guild with my future toons. It will be annoying not being able to look up someones level/class/forum-name/guild-rank, but i'll learn to live with it.

Separating the in game guild based on force and non-force is a good idea. My first toon on the republic side will be a trooper, so Soldiers of Stonewall sounds better than Knights of Stonewall.

My main - and only toon i'm playing at the moment - is on the Imperial side. I've never felt bad about being in Lords of Stonewall in stead of Knights of Stonewall, because it is the same guild with a different set of alts.

Once a new name has been chosen for our guild then the names KoS/LoS/SoS will be on the same level.