Eternal Vigilance

[NoCry]

do it.

[ArchNemesis]

I'm glad they aren't seeking a council / alliance. That's probably my main concern.

I'd definitely like the idea of having a friendly alliance (ugh, i hate that word) along with a friendly rivalry with RL. Don't know much about TIG but they seem to have their act together from the site and vid. I can definitely see us all having very similar play styles.

[Da6onet]

Question about mechanics of the game. In Darkfall there were guilds and then there were alliances made up of said guilds. I really hope TOR does not go that route because then many guilds will see that as the next natural step for their group. Indeed, it can sometimes be the only way for many of the smaller groups to succeed on a larger scale. In MxO I liked that there were no formal ties between us and say Fallen Horizon or SOTI, but we still got along well and pursued similar interests (kicking red ass, rp events, etc).

All that aside, I don't mind gaming along side EV guys, but I am weary that they started to publicly write down rules/pledges/gospel. It becomes very easy to begin proclaiming more and more "reasonable" or "lofty" ideals, to the point where you stop believing your shit stinks and everyone else who doesn't agree with you is wrong. I just want to make sure they don't evolve into zealots.

[Manic Velocity]

Tbone brought up all of my concerns in our meeting with Font last night.  Mainly that we would become a smaller chunk of a larger group, and that we would be beholden to whatever terms/rules they decide upon as far as play style.  Font made it very clear that this is not the goal of this agreement.  

If he holds true to what he said; that this is only pertains to "Phase 2" of guild registration on the TOR site, to ensure that like-minded guilds wind up on the same server, and that nothing about the agreement extends beyond that, I'm totally for it.  EV sounds like a great group of people.  I kind of feel like we'd be doing ourselves a disservice if we snubbed them (however politely).

Part of me would rather this sort of thing happen naturally.  In MxO, our interactions with other factions were not the result of any document we signed.  It was all very fluid and organic.  But where MxO was so small that it was hard to not get to know anyone, TOR will be much bigger in scope making that kind of interaction more difficult.  It makes a lot of sense to set it up beforehand in this case.

As long as the agreement allows us to maintain our indepenence and image, I can't think of a good reason to oppose.

[Gami]

Part of me would rather this sort of thing happen naturally.  In MxO, our interactions with other factions were not the result of any document we signed.  It was all very fluid and organic.

I would prefer this idea too but really I'm just along for the ride. I guess the real concern I might have is what if 5 months after launch these groups we sided with to go over to whatever server all break up or end up not being the type of guys/gals we want to play with.

I'd also prefer if we as a guild decided what server we want and don't just go to whichever one a large consensus of another group wanted. Seems to me a group wanting to make a name for itself should be picking it's own and not just following a trend. Though both of these problems can be fixed with an open beta since then we could get to know those we sided with and get a feel for the other people on the servers.

But that's just my two cents and I might be missing out on some info sense I just started reading this at page 2 :p

[Ash]

...Strategically I think it would benefit us to make sure they are on our server...

Edited for correctness.  

Everything else T said I agree with.  I also think we should talk with Mercio of RL and see if wants in on this "agreement".

[Tbone]

I'd also prefer if we as a guild decided what server we want and don't just go to whichever one a large consensus of another group wanted.

TOR is using the Guild HQ system to pre-assign guilds automatically to servers. In other words, we wouldn't get to choose regardless. We choose preferred time zone, whether we want a PvP server, and hopefully whether we want it to be RP as well, and then they form our guild waiting for us on a server before the game goes live.

We could still try to reform it on a different server, but it isn't clear yet how difficult that will be and there would be no guarantees that the name would stay reserved and we'd have to add everyone back in manually instead of your first created character already being a part of it.

[Tbone]

Got this follow up today:

Hey Tbone,

Just wanted to follow up from last night and say that I enjoyed our
conversation. Of course, there are some key decisions you'd have to
make in order for us to move forward - but I'm happy about how
everything has started off.

There are just a few more things I want to touch on that I neglected
to mention last night. First of all, I'm not sure if I've properly
stressed that we aren't quite extending an invitation just yet. We are
exploring options to bring to the table with TIG, at which point we
would vote, and it is entirely within TIG's rights (as described in
our agreement) to vote "no" for whatever reason. That is of course
very doubtful, but I point it out to emphasize that your admission
into the agreement isn't EV's decision alone. If you were to let us
know that you're interested in escalating negotiations to the next
level, we'd invite you to a chat with TIG's leadership and provide an
opportunity for your two guilds to get to know each other better. TIG
has done the same with Warmadden and is slightly further along in the
process of selecting that second Sith guild - I have my first meeting
with them tonight.

I also mentioned that tweet by David Bass, and considering our
agreement hinges on some slight assumptions about the phase program, I
think it's important to stress that David Bass has lent it some
credibility: http://twitter.com/#!/doctordake/status/53892869345394688

Lastly, to touch on your concerns about entering into a binding
agreement, if we were to get technical... I wouldn't call this an
"alliance" by traditional usage of the term. Just an agreement to land
on the same server via Bioware's phase program, and to be open-minded
about cooperation down the road (should it benefit our guilds and the
server community). I talked a bit about "impacting the population of
our future server" but may not have sufficiently elaborated upon that;
we want to ensure a large population of mature members are landing on
the same server, but I also have my eye on the current Republic vs.
Sith ratio. At the moment, the east coast PvP scene is tilted heavily
in favor of the Sith in terms of population.

Here is a thread posted today that provides some insight into that:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=306616

If you take a look at some of the top Republic guilds heading to an
east coast PvP server, I think you'll agree that many of them are also
lacking in quality. This is why I want to take advantage of an
opportunity to ensure that two fairly large-sized, quality guilds such
as our own, land on the same server. I enjoy playing underdog as much
as anyone, but I intend to work with what little control Bioware has
given us, to attempt to swing the odds a bit more in our favor.

Hopefully this has provided you with some additional insight into my
thought processes. I look forward to hearing back from you,

Cordo

[Paitryn]

So this is something David Bass is actually keeping an eye on. His look into ratios between sith and republic were good work as well. East coast servers are going to be pretty dominantly sith populated in terms of PVP.

Over time this could even out, but you have to admit that the classes for sith are pretty sexy in terms of pvp appeal with lightning based knockbacks (SI) flamethrowers (BH) and long range sniping (IA). Its no surprise that PVP enthusiasts would pick the sith over jedi here. I dont think even picking guilds with the same base population will stop this one. Imperial are just visually cool to a pvper.

FA is no stranger to out manned or outgunned situations and has come out on top often. So being outnumbered on our server is just going to be another day at the office (by accounts of your MxO stories) But picking good mature like minded guilds with a focus will help our server be mature and lack the griefing and trashtalking components that plague many pvp servers.

This still seems to be a good move for us to team up with EV on a server.

[Ragnarok]

So this is something David Bass is actually keeping an eye on. His look into ratios between sith and republic were good work as well. East coast servers are going to be pretty dominantly sith populated in terms of PVP.

Over time this could even out, but you have to admit that the classes for sith are pretty sexy in terms of pvp appeal with lightning based knockbacks (SI) flamethrowers (BH) and long range sniping (IA). Its no surprise that PVP enthusiasts would pick the sith over jedi here. I don't think even picking guilds with the same base population will stop this one. Imperial are just visually cool to a pvper.

FA is no stranger to out manned or outgunned situations and has come out on top often. So being outnumbered on our server is just going to be another day at the office (by accounts of your MxO stories) But picking good mature like minded guilds with a focus will help our server be mature and lack the griefing and trashtalking components that plague many pvp servers.

This still seems to be a good move for us to team up with EV on a server.

I agree with paitryn this would be a good move for us. Even if we don't end up having any sort of an alliance with them they would still be someone beneficial to have on our server. I like how they want to make sure we have a good and mature server community.So far I haven't seen any red flags in what they want to achieve since they basically want to just make sure that they have a good server community and to make sure pvp is balanced somewhat.  

We should invite some of the members from TIG over to our server to see what they are like. Their website and what I have read on their forums looks pretty good. Maybe you should get in contact with their leader T.

[Arawn]

I can't help but finding the numbers on the Guilds per Type Reasearch that guy did... somewhat weak, or unaccurate... I mean... Yeah Empire just wipe Republic numbers in PvP Servers... but Republic wins over Empire in RP servers... Take in mind that not ALL of the PvP Guilds are going to RP, in which case the Guilds under RP Category is the numbers we gotta look at... and those are telling us that we wont really be the underdogs... as we have over 50% more guilds than them...

Having sayd that, also note that there are alot of guilds with extremely low numbers... Althou, from what i have seen, Empire guilds tends to be bigger than Republic ones.

[Tbone]

So far there is no RPPvP server, so we could very well get grouped up with regular PvPers. Hopefully that will change, but as of now, that's not an option to choose from.

[Gami]

East coast servers are going to be pretty dominantly sith populated in terms of PVP.

It's also worth keeping in mind that this only applies to world pvp and that things like battlegrounds or arenas (to use a WoW analogy) will be a strict x vs x ratio. Questing, gathering, exploring, and RPing might become a challenge at times but the pvp focuses will be the same all over.

This might even play into the Republic's favor since a larger pool of players means a better likely hood of facing fewer people who know what they are doing and a constant struggle to perform minor task may speed up the learning process for the Republic side.

[Gami]

TOR is using the Guild HQ system to pre-assign guilds automatically to servers. In other words, we wouldn't get to choose regardless. We choose preferred time zone, whether we want a PvP server, and hopefully whether we want it to be RP as well, and then they form our guild waiting for us on a server before the game goes live.

We could still try to reform it on a different server, but it isn't clear yet how difficult that will be and there would be no guarantees that the name would stay reserved and we'd have to add everyone back in manually instead of your first created character already being a part of it.

An interesting idea. Not sure how practical it is and I hope they test that in open beta (if we get one).

Is there anywhere though where people have requested a RPPvP server? It should go without saying to create one but the lack of ability to designate that desire specifically has me worried.

[Ragnarok]

An interesting idea. Not sure how practical it is and I hope they test that in open beta (if we get one).

Is there anywhere though where people have requested a RPPvP server? It should go without saying to create one but the lack of ability to designate that desire specifically has me worried.

Well in swg starsider became the unofficial rp community and a lot of them are coming over to tor so I'm sure even if we don't get an official server we will get an unofficial one.