Splitting KoS into Sub Guilds?

I know a lot of people are taken back by changes happening. We are in a new game and a new guild changes are going to need to be made quick a lot of times (at the beginning) as well as situations occur.

As far as tonight goes I didn't really feel ambushed. I was directing people to the forums to express their concerns and see the really detailed explanations as to why these changes were being made and for some reason had half of the people take the advice the other half demand a presence now to tell them why.

We will over time have a stronger officer presence in the guild but even when we do it is not fair to anyone to have to sit in game all day and repeat information over and over in order to inform players. I strongly urge people to get in a routine to check the forums even if it is just to skim them as it will make communication in the long run better. I really love this guild and will stick around in order to see it through. This is just a rough period which all organizations have especially ones that grow so fast. So please just be patient and expect the unexpected as of right now as nothing is truly set in stone as the current and future way to handle things except for "Making this a safe and fun place to play your favorite game!"

Much love,

Jon

I've expressed my concerns in guild chat and vent and I shall reiterate them here for the purpose of continuity...

First of all, I want to dispel the notion that I am impatient. The launch of this much-anticipated game was nothing new... My question is, with so much run-up time before the launch of the game, why were officer/recruitment issues not first ironed out? Why was nothing communicated clearly up until these couple weeks?

In the course of my play time since launch, both days and nights, at various hours of the day, I have seen officers log in and out, spend a few hours in-game, log out, with nary a whisper... Honestly, aside from Doogie, no one seemed to take the lead or have any interest in handling the business of the guild (ie. invites, conflict within/outside the guild).

It came to a point where I was frustrated with the lack of clear direction and stepped up to offer to at least help out with invites simply out of necessity due to the sheer number of hours I am afforded to play this game, and am able to provide this minor assistance... I know I'm not alone in this, and I acknowledge other Lieutenants' efforts when the task fell to them as well...

I guess, that's the main issue I have... It's not so much WHY decisions have been made but rather, HOW they're being made...

Clear lines of communication and membership buy-in are key to any well run organization... To say that members have a say and "feel included" but not have any say in the guild they have invested so much time in is the beginnings of a PR nightmare... Especially in a large guild such as ours...

I've been an officer in a semi-large guild and I'm familiar with how things are run. I can tell you, it is a thankless, unenviable task, so consider what I've said as the most constructive of criticisms coming from someone who's been there, and is familiar with the burden of leadership...

As a case in point, there were times where the officers and GL in my previous guild took the time out on a raid night to get everyone together to announce important subjects, like changing our loot system. Questions were asked and answered, considerations were made, and suggestions deliberated before any final decision was made...

I'm a huge fan of adopting a consultative approach to leadership decisions but using this relatively minor issue as an example (and we haven't even started raiding yet), makes me even more troubled... And it takes a lot for me to feel the need to speak up on something...

I've pretty much gone well above and beyond my duty as a "regular" member - accepting invites, helping people out, answering questions, taking time out to speak to adversarial people, and so on with hardly any guidance or direction from the top brass... All in the past month of the game...

With as much in-game time I've invested in the guild, including missing out on parts of the wonderfully immersive story, perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume I would even be asked for my opinion? Even with an issue that would affect the guild I've invested much of my in-game time so far to hopefully build.

- Josh (Daryyn)

Well it's clear that people are unhappy, and I do see valid complaints. What I'm not seeing (or seeing vary few of) are solutions? What our your solutions to these issues. What do you want to see?

Quote by Jedilicious

It's only in the past few days that you were named as GL, and in your defense, I've seen you log into the game since then. So thank you for that. But where are the other Officers? I don't see them much at all.

So what happens is, in the lack of Officers in-game, when questions arise, or problems arise (which has happened) the helpful non-Officers among us try to direct people to the forums. They come here, then come back in-game and say they a) couldn't find any info related to their question or b) couldn't figure out who the Officers are (who, in all fairness, were only just announced on the forums a few days ago as well).

Quote by Jedilicious

And yes, before everyone jumps on me, I understand real life schedules, and I understand I can't expect an Officer in game 24/7. But the past few days I've been playing the game 8-hours straight (work has been light), and not seen one Officer log in... aside from Zepari and Taelyn for today's 'announcement.'

Just making the point that I was online yesterday night, while you were also online, and I always say hello when I log into a game.

Quote by Jedilicious

The problem I had today was when you announced the split in gchat you explicitly told members (who were surprised by and questioning that decision) that there had been an open discussion on the forums and that no one had complained - thus you had made the decision you did. When a few of us came to the forums to see this public discussion, there was not one to be found.

Thus my feeling of a bait-and-switch... that we were told one thing in-game to quiet any discussion/questions that did not end up being true when we got to the forums.

There wasn't even an announcement on the forums about the split. Thus I created this topic asking what was going on.

Even tonight, Justjon was the only 'Captain' in-game doing invites. One of the other members asked about the guild split and a discussion ensued... and there are no Officers around to field questions or discuss what's going on with the guild. Poor Jon got ambushed, and I feel bad for him.

I think there maybe a little confusion on what was said. I believe Zep stated that it had been mentioned on the forums that we'd need to create additional guilds in-game. Zepari would not have said that there was an open discussion on the forums about the topic because he knows very well that there wasn't. I think this was simply a miss-communication.

We were planning the announcement sometime this week, but making recruitment posts for Captains and Officers were more important and Zep only has so much free time to make the posts. This past weekend was the first time we'd been able to meet for an Officers meeting since the holiday season began and there was when we made the final decisions about the alt guilds.

Quote by Jedilicious

The game is 3 weeks old. Major changes are happening with the guild. Where are you guys? In-game, I mean. Not here on the forums. Players are looking for you in-game.

(And yes, I too believe more people should read the forums; the age-old dilemma of gaming websites. But the truth is, 75% of your players will NEVER come to the website. They get their info from gChat.)

It's only in the past few days that you were named as GL, and in your defense, I've seen you log into the game since then. So thank you for that. But where are the other Officers? I don't see them much at all.

What major changes?

Our Officers span multiple time zones and continents. They may simply not play the game at the same time as you or even the same days as you. This is not something for which to fault them. Running this guild is a hobby for them, something fun for them to do in their spare time and requiring them to be in-game during certain times or amounts of times is simply not feasible.

Actually, we have rather good website usage across all of our sites among our membership. Our sites aren't just a guild site, but rather a community portal where they can interact with other like-minded people and that has attracted many people to use our sites more frequently.

Quote by Jedilicious

So what happens is, in the lack of Officers in-game, when questions arise, or problems arise (which has happened) the helpful non-Officers among us try to direct people to the forums. They come here, then come back in-game and say they a) couldn't find any info related to their question or b) couldn't figure out who the Officers are (who, in all fairness, were only just announced on the forums a few days ago as well).

This creates further frustration in-game. Not just for the players, but for those of us who are trying to be helpful. That's why I started the other discussion topic asking who the officers are, so we at last know who to direct people to when they get here.

My own frustration results from having to start topics to ply you guys for information that really should already have been readily available somewhere on the site.

If members have questions or can't find information, that's exactly why we have this resource. It's for asking the questions that you don't know the answer to. We have the contact form to send us an email, the forums, private messages and in-game mail. You aren't prying information from us. We have no idea what information to give you unless you ask.

The Officers weren't just announced. Every time I've promoted a new officer(s), I make a matching post congratulating them in the Council Chambers, such as this or this. We'll be adding an Officer's page to the Welcome Center shortly.

Quote by Jedilicious

That's where my concerns are rooted for this 2nd off-shoot guild; It seems you're having trouble keeping up with the two you already have (or at least the Republic one)... and now you're adding a 3rd?

Perhaps I and my frustrations should go. :unsure:

We aren't having trouble keeping up with either guild. We have a great set of officers. Zepari was an officer in Stonewall Fleet for over a year and half on top of being a Fleet Captain and a very early member. Halish has been a major part of our community for several years, including being a Fleet Captain in Stonewall Fleet. DakonKor has helped our community very much in the relatively short time that he's been an officer. As well, I am helping KoS and LoS as much as I possibly can. The leadership team in Knights and Lords of Stonewall is perfectly capable of handling any issues that we come across. I have complete faith in them.

Quote by ryyven

First of all, I want to dispel the notion that I am impatient. The launch of this much-anticipated game was nothing new... My question is, with so much run-up time before the launch of the game, why were officer/recruitment issues not first ironed out? Why was nothing communicated clearly up until these couple weeks?

The guild and custom channel systems were some of the last features that were added to the game and when they were originally added, they were incomplete. For custom channels, there's very limited abilities even now.

We simply didn't know how the guilds would work at launch. There was little information about it other than "more would be coming". Sadly, that seems far off. The guild system in TOR is very limited. We didn't know what we'd have till the game actually launched. There's no mass mail features and even the ACL system isn't very advanced with limited options. It's taken sometime for us to adopt how we do things to the tools at our disposal.

On top of that, TOR launched 5 days before Christmas and just 11 days before New Years Eve. With the officer's holiday schedules, we simply didn't have the time to meet and discuss many of the topics that needed discussed. Last weekend was the first time sine launch that we had time to meet and discuss topics. This is when we finalized our plans for the alt guilds. As KoS had only a few spaces left, it was necessary that we decided then.

Quote by ryyven

It came to a point where I was frustrated with the lack of clear direction and stepped up to offer to at least help out with invites simply out of necessity due to the sheer number of hours I am afforded to play this game, and am able to provide this minor assistance... I know I'm not alone in this, and I acknowledge other Lieutenants' efforts when the task fell to them as well...

What lack of direction?

Quote by ryyven

Clear lines of communication and membership buy-in are key to any well run organization... To say that members have a say and "feel included" but not have any say in the guild they have invested so much time in is the beginnings of a PR nightmare... Especially in a large guild such as ours...

We have clear lines of communication. You're using one of them. :) We listen very much to what our membership tells us. In the future, there will be more opportunities for the membership to be involved in decisions. Right now, we're taking a big step in that direction by getting more people as Captains and Officers and expanding the leadership team.

Quote by ryyven

As a case in point, there were times where the officers and GL in my previous guild took the time out on a raid night to get everyone together to announce important subjects, like changing our loot system. Questions were asked and answered, considerations were made, and suggestions deliberated before any final decision was made...

Doing things such as this can be very difficult considering that our community is so large, we have members from across the US, Europe and Australia. Finding a time that all of them, or a large number of them, can attend is very difficult. That said Zepari does want to have regular guild wide meetings.

Quote by ryyven

I've pretty much gone well above and beyond my duty as a "regular" member - accepting invites, helping people out, answering questions, taking time out to speak to adversarial people, and so on with hardly any guidance or direction from the top brass... All in the past month of the game...

I would hope that helping each other out, answering questions, and sticking up for each other would be something that all members do for one another. We're very grateful for the Lieutenants help with inviting characters during this busy time. When we promote the new Captains, there will be an induction meeting where we introduce them to and explain our process and management techniques.

Quote by ryyven

With as much in-game time I've invested in the guild, including missing out on parts of the wonderfully immersive story, perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume I would even be asked for my opinion? Even with an issue that would affect the guild I've invested much of my in-game time so far to hopefully build.

As I stated above, in the future there will be more opportunities for membership to weigh in and get involved.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

Doing things such as this can be very difficult considering that our community is so large, we have members from across the US, Europe and Australia. Finding a time that all of them, or a large number of them, can attend is very difficult. That said Zepari does want to have regular guild wide meetings.

Since a lot of the Officers will be available at different times it might be a good idea to have different meeting times. Then the Officers can discuss all the concerns between them and represent their time slot of players in a sense.

I know this is in the future but figured since it was mentioned and the idea was there I would put it out there.

Quote by bluewraeth

Who doesn't like a healthy debate.

I think one thing to keep in mind through the course of the rapid growth of the swtor guild is to suggest having level-set expectations for what is in essence a voluntary organization for not only like minded swtor players, but for larger population of LGBT gamers.

When you look around and see the organization and design of the website alone I think everyone can agree a lot of effort has been put in by what is again in essence a voluntary organization.

As many have pointed out on both sides of the equation, the game is only a month old; roughly. Take some time and enjoy the content and set your expectations accordingly for a volunteer group working with the dynamics of a new game and new guild implementation not seen before in other MMOs.

To provide a real world example I have not experienced or managed a product launch, application implementation, or other projects go from launch to implementation in 30 days without a lot of wrinkles and gotchas. And this type of work is by paid professionals that can devote themselves 8-10 hours a day.

If anyone feels the need to leave the guild, than I will tip my hat and say good luck, but I would urge continued patience as the officer corps works out their communication channels and organization, and just enjoy the game with your fellows.

Cheers!

Nicely worded and I agree.

Nick said, "I would hope that helping each other out, answering questions, and sticking up for each other would be something that all members do for one another. We're very grateful for the Lieutenants help with inviting characters during this busy time. When we promote the new Captains, there will be an induction meeting where we introduce them to and explain our process and management techniques."

One point I would like to add to this thread is that a reason we haven't seen a multitude of Officer involvment is because Officers are still being worked out for both guilds. Zepari posted earlier this week that he was lookign for volunteers. So while this game is still being worked out with the guild it is good to remember that leadership is not lacking and is not sitting ideally watching as some members flounder about the galaxy.

We have a strong leadership presence in this guild, as we have seen from all of the helpful comments they have posted throughout this thread. They care about our opinions and want to see this guild grow and continuously accept new like minded players into the fold.

I have read a lot of great ideas int his thread, as well as many others, and I put to those members who are contributing to in game help and advice to apply for a leadership role and get involved in the guilds management. I know that for myself I am a new captain and still learning what that entails but I am always available through the forum as well as nights and weekends in game. I have been consistantly in game at those times and have had some great interaction with everyone in the guild. I am on board with this change.

One thing I will suggest to members of both guilds is to change the color of the Stonewall general chat text to a different color than the normal chats so that it stands out more than party or guild chats. Mine was by default yellow and it blended in with loot information. To do this simply right click on the General chat tab at the top of the chat window and go into the chat preferences. Stonewall will be listed at the bottom with the defaut color on the right of it. I made mine a bright purple so it is not confused with any other chat text.

I look forward to seeing you all in game and May the Force be with us all.

-Kevin ~ Captain Xal Starlighter

I heard about this guild from a friend of mine for the first time and decided to join right away to play with him. We have been together with him in almost every MMO and we've played and quested together, joined guilds together, organized new gay guild chapters (like Mystic Alliance) when there weren't any and finally here we were enjoying playing under the same guild. His character as a Jedi Consular completes my smuggler perfectly.

Today I find out that I can no longer be in the same guild with my friend unless I stop playing my smuggler level 30 which I invested so much and enjoy playing, and restart as a force wielder from scratch.

I have been informed that I am no longer good enough for this guild and my knighthood is overnight taken away from me and I'm made a plain soldier.

Mind you, a soldier of XYZ or a soldier of ABC does not equate to the meaning of a "soldier of fortune" which is a noun and has a separate meaning. The correct form would then have to be "Soldiers of Fortune of Stonewall" if you want to go the length and try to squeeze a smuggler (which in no means is a mercenary or a soldier of fortune). A soldier, whether it's in an organized army, a privately held merc company or a criminal gang is a warrior who fights under a form of hierarchic structure, ranking system and is strictly bound by orders from their superiors.

I do not see how my smuggler is a soldier of anything here. If anything, a Jedi knight is more of a soldier than a smuggler will ever be.

I do not know why I am no longer a knight.

I do not know why I can't be with my friend in the same guild anymore when we started the game together.

I do not know why I am asked to leave my guild which I joined months ago to open up space for someone new.

I understand the sudden growth pushes our organization to conform the needs of the new comers... and I want to trust our guild leadership that they will find not just a quick solution, but a FAIR and satisfactory solution.

Cruist,

I am glad you joined our guild for starters, but remember that this is not a complete seperation. There will be nothing holding you back from grouping with your Jedi friends. I know it may seem like a harsh serparation but both guild will be linked by the same players as well as on the Stonewall chat lines. We will encourage cross guild grouping.

My own fiance' is a Jedi and I am a Smuggler so I know exactly what you mean about being perfectly matched for each other. I know that any time I want to join him on a story mission or to help him catch up on a particularly hard planet we just need to message each other. I am friends with players from other guilds, such as our ally guild Rough Trade, and it doesn't faze us that we aren't int he same exact guild sect. We all have a common goal, saving the galaxy from the tyrany of the Emporer and the Sith.

My advice will be to wait and see how it all shakes out and then the guild leaders can address any specific issues such as yours once everything comes to light.

Besides don't you want to be in the kick ass guild of guns and tech? Those Jedi may be able to hurl large rocks at us but they are no match for a quick blaster and good ol' dirty kick.

We are one guild united through acceptance and community.

-Kevin ~ Captain Xal Starlighter

Quote by cruist22

His character as a Jedi Consular completes my smuggler perfectly.

Today I find out that I can no longer be in the same guild with my friend unless I stop playing my smuggler level 30 which I invested so much and enjoy playing, and restart as a force wielder from scratch.

I am in the exact same boat as you with my own husband, my primary, Kor, is a level 32 Trooper, his main (and we only exclusively level these characters together) is a Jedi Shadow. Neither one of us see this as being "separated." Whether you are in Knights of Stonewall, Lords of Stonewall, or Soldiers of Stonewall, others outside of the guild will recognize you as part of the Stonewall family, and within the guild, at least I can say from this Officer's perspective, there is no distinction.

It was simply a logical and clear delineation that provided us with two large active populations after the realignment was complete. This clear line helps minimize any accusations of favor about why one character was moved but not another.

Within the game mechanics, the only 'downside' to the split is not being able to see the other side's guild roster (an issue we already have to deal with on the Knights vs. Lords split). How does this in any way affect your ability to be aligned with your friend?

By using the Stonewall channel for Guild communication, the communication limitation is dealt with. The ranking structure is identical, and all events will be for both guilds. Stonewall (well as long as I've been a member anyway) has always dealt with guild splits, but none of the leadership sees 3 separate guilds (or 6 if you count the STO guilds). Whether you roll a Sith, an Agent, a Smuggler, a Knight, a Science Officer or a Klingon, alt or main, you are a part of the Stonewall family. We see one guild and do everything we can to operate in that fashion.

So much so that (and Nick, I apologize for breaking confidence, if I am) Nick voiced his concerns about fragmentation between the Star Trek and Star Wars aspects of the guild during our Officers meeting last weekend. A division that is already infamous in fandom. He wants all of the officers to find ways to keep the guild unified in spite of the game (and scifi) divisions, and remind us why we all sought out Stonewall. Every one of us found Stonewall, Stonewall didn't have a Captain or Officer sit in the Fleet (in the case of SW:TOR) and randomly invite you because you were unguilded.

Every member and every officer found Stonewall because we were looking for a safe and comfortable place to be ourselves and share a common interest (gaming), whether you are gay, bi, lesbian transgender, queer, or straight ally.

Once we have the administrative stuff taken care of, I have a laundry list of regular events I will be coordinating and these events are for Stonewall, not Soldiers of Stonewall, because that happens to be the guild my character is in, and not Knights of Stonewall because that just happens to be the guild that carries the current primary guild name.

As for the name... not to quibble, but a Smuggler seems a lot closer to Soldier of Fortune (though I think my husband got a little generous with the term) than they are to a Knight of any kind. That said, you put 6 gamers in a room and you're going to have 18 opinions on a subject, so we understand that no one solution was ever going to be single perfect solution that would make everyone happy.

DakonKor makes a good point about Smugglers being closer to soldiers than Knights but one thing I will amend is that Smugglers should be known as Soldiers of Luck and Fortune. Xal Starlighter is a treasure hunter and a privateer. As far as my story goes I am essentially a soldier of the Republic, more specifically I am the guy they call on to get the dirty work done that the Troopers just can't seem to handle.

I am really looking forward to this new arrangement. Sometimes those Jedi can be so smug. LoL.

-Kevin ~ Captain Xal Starlighter

Quote by Jedilicious

I don't think anyone expects you to have all the answers to all the suggestions. Just having an Announcement about the details (before a public statement in-game) would have been helpful.

I would point out that there was no official Announcement in game. Zep and I were going through the process of getting the new guild set up, get our Officers and Captains in place in the new guild, so that we could make the transition as smooth as possible when we were ready to announce it and begin the realignment. Which, it seems, is exactly the kind of thing you want us to be doing.

While we were doing this, a few folks happened to be on and caught a whiff of change in the air and asked what was going on.

Would you have preferred we said, "Nothing to see here, move along"?

Instead, much to my husband's dismay, I took over an hour of our time online together yesterday afternoon, and then another three hours last night to discuss and address some of the questions and concerns that came up as a result.

Quote by Jedilicious

The problem I had today was when you announced the split in gchat you explicitly told members (who were surprised by and questioning that decision) that there had been an open discussion on the forums and that no one had complained - thus you had made the decision you did. When a few of us came to the forums to see this public discussion, there was not one to be found.

As I pointed out, this is either a miscommunication, which every one of the Officers have addressed from varying perspectives, or, as you put it, "active misdirection" about what really occurred.

Every Officer was present for the discussion about the guild split and was part of the decision making process on how we would proceed. Not one of us was involved in a "public discussion." And in gchat we specifically said we felt there wasn't enough time to handle this level of decision publicly.

What would be my gain, or Zep's gain, to specifically lie about this in gchat when it would be so easily provable on the forums? There would be no gain, and only the chance to look duplicitous if we actually did lie about the situation.

Quote by Jedilicious

Thus my feeling of a bait-and-switch... that we were told one thing in-game to quiet any discussion/questions that did not end up being true when we got to the forums.

My lost 4 hours of game time (and my husband's resulting frustration) would disagree with fact that we tried to quiet discussion about this.

I didn't actually log out of Taelyn until the discussion had sufficient time to move away from the topic and on to showtunes.

This feels like a deliberate mis-characterization of how the events took place yesterday.

Quote by Jedilicious

Even tonight, Justjon was the only 'Captain' in-game doing invites. One of the other members asked about the guild split and a discussion ensued... and there are no Officers around to field questions or discuss what's going on with the guild. Poor Jon got ambushed, and I feel bad for him.

It may have a lot to do with the fact that I spent another 3.5 hours on this website responding to this very thread doing my best to address every concern that was being brought up and field the accusations of intentional misdirection levied.

Quote by Jedilicious

The game is 3 weeks old. Major changes are happening with the guild. Where are you guys? In-game, I mean. Not here on the forums. Players are looking for you in-game.

Doogiegood was incredibly active during this time. He was handling the personnell management of the guild both in game and on the forums. It was a FULL TIME JOB that he was doing VOLUNTARILY while also working a full time job in the real world and finishing up his education.

I have been logged in nearly daily (usually 3 or 4 of the 5 workdays) and am usually around from about 6pm EST - 9pm EST, and usually put in two or three, 2-3 hour sessions on at least one (if not both) of the days of the weekend. I may not be spamming the gchat or Stonewall channels, but I am there.

As a new Officer, I remained in the background and let the more experienced officers take center stage as I learned the ropes. Bear in mind, right up until recently we had a full staff of Officers.

However, quite suddenly a few officers had to step down for personal reasons. In this void I have attempted to step up and be as available as is humanly possible.

I'd be surprised that Doug would have disclosed his reasons for stepping down to anyone outside of the guild leadership. It's unfair of you to lay claim to the reasons for someone making a choice about how they are, or are not, interacting with the guild. Any reason given to us would have been in confidence and would not be something we could share in support or defense of your accusation.

Quote by Jedilicious

And yes, before everyone jumps on me, I understand real life schedules, and I understand I can't expect an Officer in game 24/7. But the past few days I've been playing the game 8-hours straight (work has been light), and not seen one Officer log in... aside from Zepari and Taelyn for today's 'announcement.'

I have been logged in game every evening this week, specifically because of the void of the number of Officers we currently have.

I was logged in for almost the entire day yesterday on my main "Kor" from about 10am until about 3:00pm when we finished getting Soldiers of Stonewall set up, then I switched to Taelyn, an alt I created so I would have the ability to do guild management in the Knights, and spent the next hour and a half addressing the guild split issue even though we weren't yet ready to announce it.

I'm not sure how much more I could possibly do "increase" communication. I've even posted my email and chat access via GTalk or AIM if people wanted to contact me directly outside of these forums or the game.

Finally around 4:30 I logged out to actually get some stuff done, you know, in the real world where it matters. After my husband and I had a chance to eat, I logged back in around 5:30 and remained in-game until 8:30 SPECIFICALLY in case questions needed to be answered or issues addressed.

I didn't actually get to PLAY during this time mind you, because I was responding to this and other threads.

Quote by Jedilicious

Perhaps I and my frustrations should go. :unsure:

No contracts were signed, and we take no umbrage against those who decide that Stonewall isn't for them. Our goal is that you enjoy your experiences in game and with the guild. If you don't and you find better fulfillment elsewhere, we wish you the best.

I found Stonewall a little over a year ago, and found that community was right for me. So much so, that I hung around long after I stopped playing STO. When the second call for Officers went out, I thought I would volunteer to help this guild maintain those standards for a new group of friends that would be joining us with SW:TOR's release.

I used to spend all of my free time playing MMO's. I broke that habit years ago and was happier for it. I am enjoying SW:TOR specifically for the stories that BioWare is famous for, so I put in the free time I would set aside for gaming for SW:TOR. I've got no stake or desire to get involved in the "politics" or "drama" that some often perceive within guild management.

I have no desire other than to maintain the same fun and safe, and freely open community that Stonewall had been for me. Please remember that I am volunteering my free time to help address this concerns FOR YOU.

If it isn't enough, then I apologize. I've got too many responsibilities to voluntarily devote 6-8 hours a day, every day, to any online community. I hope you find the specific kind of structure you are looking for somewhere and are happier for it.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best.

-Mike

I know I am going to catch hell for this, but I believe fair points have been made on both sides and a continued back and forth, point and counterpoint, or crossfire between opposing opinions is simply "circling the bowl".

Quite obvious people are passionate about these topics, but at some point someone is going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time and out of context and chaos will ensue, dogs and cats will live together.....

While I appear glib in this respons, I am serious, but like to temper the argument with a bit of wit. I would again advise patience for bit more time for plans to formulate and circle back in a few weeks to discuss.

That being said I am a Captain on the Lords side ( I have no presence on the light, fluffy, bunny side) and am always willing to chat with anyone about their concerns and can relay these to these officer corps.

Cheers!

Josh

I guess I'll take one last bite here.

Zepari did bring an excellent point, by having 2 Guilds, one with Smugglers and Troopers, the other with Jedi Consular/Knight the guild bank will be tailored to those classes and allow for a greater amount of class specific storage.

On the other hand I also understand some folks frustration, in the end current members might feel they are being displaced in favour of new members. Sometimes the best policy is KISS (keep it simple), just create a new guild and invite new members into it until there's room again on KoS.

Again I support whatever you guys decide but sometimes simplicity rules the day.

Quote by intristin

Oh please, Jedi's rule, smugglers drool. Don't be jealous.. :kiss: :silly: :lol:

Oh please... You hokey religious nuts are just jealous of the Smugglers' and Troopers' natural talent. :lol: ;)

Jedi: *Swings menacing lightsaber, hands flashing with uber-cool force powers*

Smuggler: *runs up and kicks him in the nuts before swinging round and blasting him with a shotgun in the back of the head*

'nuff said

Quote by Sidanis

I guess I'll take one last bite here.

Zepari did bring an excellent point, by having 2 Guilds, one with Smugglers and Troopers, the other with Jedi Consular/Knight the guild bank will be tailored to those classes and allow for a greater amount of class specific storage.

On the other hand I also understand some folks frustration, in the end current members might feel they are being displaced in favour of new members. Sometimes the best policy is KISS (keep it simple), just create a new guild and invite new members into it until there's room again on KoS.

Again I support whatever you guys decide but sometimes simplicity rules the day.

Our main reasoning for not doing it like this was that we see Knights of Stonewall as sort of our flag ship guild, it's the name we use to promote and define ourselves. As such, we feel everyone should be able to have a character in Knights of Stonewall. That meant we had to decided another method to split the membership. We discussed level banding the guilds with hard and soft limits, but it was decided it would be too labor intensive to manage that with the need to invite and promote a character many times. We settled on class banding because it was a clear and defined metric to use. Since Knight is a clear Jedi term, we decided to keep it for Force users and create a new guild for non-force users.

Quote by intristin

Quote by ryyven

Jedi: *Swings menacing lightsaber, hands flashing with uber-cool force powers*

Smuggler: *runs up and kicks him in the nuts before swinging round and blasting him with a shotgun in the back of the head*

'nuff said

HA, yea yea, I admit, it's a nice trick. But you have to get in close. My Force armor will block your sad little baster, my force wave will knock you off the side of a cliff. And while you laying in a pool of your own blood, I use the force to drop a large rock on your head and finish you off. FEEL THE FORCE, BITCH!! Mauhahahahahah

To funny, love it. I know not to drink coffee while reading the forums, coffee thru the noise is not pretty or fun! :silly: