TOR, The Guild, Life & Everything...

With the current progression of the game being in it's unreleased state it's becoming very apparent that the community in general is becoming restless and many are deciding (quite sensibly) that it's time to take some time out until next year. You probably won't be surprised to hear that this effects us and a lot of other guilds quite dramatically. Here are few concerns and possible solutions that have been floating around my busy little brain and instead of sharing it with just the officers I thought I'd get our whole community involved to try and brainstorm these problems:

The Guild Hiatus

This is a very controversial topic with the Officers at the minute and some of us are divided on the subject. I myself are in favour of putting the guild on hold until next year so we can recruit the members we need closer to the time without having the worry about lack of activity and members not pulling their weight. On the other hand some of the Officers are quite rightly concerned that Agents will simply just leave or move to other guilds to ensure that they have a place to go when the game starts. On this subject for now all I can say is that E.P.O.C.H WILL CONTINUE TO THRIVE NO MATTER WHAT IS THROWN AT US!

Role-play

Roleplay has always been the main part of what EPOCH is all about and this area has brought up a lot of different views and opinions of what direction we should be heading in. Here are the main concerns affecting the progress of RP:

1. Not enough members taking part in the RP.
2. Too many RP's going on at once so it''s difficult to keep up.
3. People dropping out of ongoing RP.
4. People not abiding by the RP rules set by our guild.
5. RL time constraints and other guild activities stopping members by participating in RP.
6. Members preferring to RP in game rather than D-RP and Play by Post.

Personally I know for a fact that all those points have effected me at one stage.

Activity & Guild Roles

If anything were to be the bane of EPOCH I'd have to say it would be the activity. Yes, we do have those members that appear on here everyday who are a godsend to the Leaders and Officers of the guild, then again we also have the other members of the guild that are the exact opposite of what we're looking for in a member. This is by no means an attack on those people because it may be just a case of them being a less vocal member of the community.

Guild roles is another issue that I feel needs to be addressed as I will be discussing the future of the some of them soon in the next guild meeting. I'm sure a lot of us agree that there are some elements of the guild that just aren't needed. Now whilst I feel roles like emissaries are actually quite important I think we can all agree that if the roles aren't being put into practice then really they have no purpose within the guild. Please note that I'm just using the emissaries as an example.

Lack of a Game

With no game let's face it, TOR quickly loses a lot of it's appeal. BioWare certainly haven't helped the wait thats for sure. As an RP guild we do have the advantage of building a guild background to keep members interest levels at a peak, but for some of us (yes even myself included) there comes a time where you have to ask yourself if it's actually enough? It can be very frustrating for leaders & officers to keep a members interest level to a reasonable degree and it's certainly not the easiest task. We as a guild have to work together for this project to work and what with having no game the odds are stacked against us to keep the members we feel complement the guild perfectly.



I'll be posting some ideas for solutions soon enough but if you feel you have anything to bring up or an idea on improving the struggling aspects of our guild feel free to post a reply. Remember guys, stay constructive and I look forward to seeing your views when I'm next on.

This might sound like a cop out but I honestly think alot of member apathy, itchy feet or lazyness is just boredom for TOR not being out.

I'm still not sure about a Guild hiatus but I could see the positive aspects for having a break but not disbanding overall and instead grouping up on other games and projects

OK, since it could be my last day when I have spare time, I'll try to write down my thoughts and feelings without too much E-drama

The condition of RP in the guild is not the condition of the guild itself.
I must say I'm little sad because I was hoping to play more chat RP as player and had really only two short sessions when playing Leta. The rest I've spend as Game master. It's the same for me when we play tabletop RP with my friends I have just bad luck and end up with narrator screen. But still, I hope I won't be forced to seek other guild. There was a moment when I was considering applying to Hands of Darkness, but, with all respect for our RP Allies of all kind, E.P.O.C.H. is most original and have great potential.

New wave of players, like Dywa or me is focused basically on RP itself. Small or big one we need it like junkie need next dope to feel well. what we got for few months was only small amount of players interested in such activity and the rest was playing L4D or anything else to kill some time waiting for damn TOR. I was quite angry for few days and I think there was kind of tension in the air between young and old members of EPOCH. It felt like two different guilds. But now, when I had some time out of the active playing I see that people here are much longer than me and yet they are in the same place, still on guard. Chat RP is now fancy, and I must say it gives feeling close to classic tabletop RP. But I can understand that it's not "a must" and will live with that. I want to play Leta Orbus with green [E.P.O.C.H.] above her head, no mater how long I have to wait. And I don't think that dropping RP activity is really such big problem, since the group of chat RP addicts was not the major one. I'm not going anywhere, but I can understand people that drift to other, more active in this area guilds. It's free market.

If the decision will be to play something else when waiting for TOR, I'll just hang around since the only MMO I've promised to play will be BW baby. I had family, so more free time won't be a problem. Just want to know if I can still be a part of EPOCH if not moving to WoW Cataclysm or DC Heroes. But I prefer to see the Agency as the place cool dudes wait for SWTOR AND play some other MMO or console games than EPOCH ghost-town with plank "Closed till spring 2011". It just may not work and the guild will fall apart. And all the time sacrificed for it will be lost without even shooting one damn mob in the actual game.

So:

There is no need of pumping up artificially the RP if people are just too bored with it and don't find pleasure in it. Or don't have enough time and energy to do it as often as in other RP guilds. It's not a military we don't have to jump as high as the rest all the damn time.

If the options will be shutting down EPOCH for few months or adding to SWTOR EPOCH new section with new MMO game I'll be voting for second idea. Just we may think about blocking recrutation for some time and unlock it before game will be at the stores.

Ambassadors to other guilds are useful, but just maybe not right now. It's very cool job IN the game, when you can meet the clients and collect the contracts but with our lack of serious cross guild stories it's pointless. Or it's useful as getaway route for players

So frankly, I think that there is some kind of decision in the air but it's to fragile to be more than whispered. If the idea is to move to WoW I won't mind but I wont play it either, just watch from the deep of this forum. If all of this had to be decided at guild meeting I just hope we could get somewhere with this.

Leta Orbus was and will be main character. Raza Mirat will be probably at least EPOCH freelancer so if the SHTF, I may be just forced to cry for some random RP at ally guilds but I won't probably leave EPOCH. It's just too much fun and the idea of the guild (especially now with leaning towards Imperial Intelligence cooperation) is so merging with my character concept.

I hope it's all clear and I did not offended anyone with my loooooong post. It's just a game and the fact that people here understand this is one of the big "+" of the Agency.

Cheers

Witya

I'm seconding Witya on his thinking.

To me EPOCH is not about RPing on chat or D-RP or forum RP. It's about building a team, a group of people I'd call friends and I'll love play SWTOR when it will hit.
To me EPOCH is about long term involvment in how to devellop our small comunitee to get ready for SWTOR.
To me EPOCH is about SWTOR and friendship.

My loyalty doesn't just lie in self-interested RP-junkies but with people ready and willing to involve on long-term not just on what they got straight away. I believe our long waiting is a needed to arrive in the game as a strong team with a backbone team of ready people. People I can proudly say "They're my friends!" Loyalty to friends isn't vain or empty words to me.

Now if you think my words are harsh... well they indeed are but remember what is EPOCH. It's not a RP forum, it's a forum about a guild project for a future game. It's not about now, it's about 2011!

Keep your heads up, my fellow EPOCHians and friends! Walk will be long in the darkness of pre-launch but there is light ahead and our sacrifices are worth being done.

PS: Yes, I feel and mean every single word of what I said.

*Raises hand*

I'm one of those "divided" Officer/Leaders Sureshot mentioned.

I think my main concern is that I'm a creative sprinter, not a long-distance runner. I've put a lot into EPOCH personally but I'm starting to run out of steam (and I don't mean the game client ). The astute among you will notice many, many projects started by me and very few actually finished and this is because I have lots of ideas but if I lack feedback (positive or negative doesn't really matter) I tend to assume people don't care and just drop what I'm doing and move onto my next project. (This is a defense mechanism of mine that stops me taking things personally )

Considering the real drip-feed of info that BW are giving us, I'm slowly starting to run out of new ideas, new projects to start. I've noticed also that by playing games with some of you guys (lotro, AoC, l4D, etc) that two things really spring out at me:

1. I like playing with you folk, its a great group dynamic no matter what we play and we have a good laugh but can knuckle down into some top-notch rp at a moment's notice. Thats RARE for a group this small.

2. I miss actually playing games online. I think a part of me was driving the RP so hard because I was trying to compensate for that lack of gaming atmosphere.

I can see the Haitus as both a good and bad thing for EPOCH. Good in that we dont have to stretch the TOR info we get so damn thin and try to make mountains out of the scraps BW feed us, and also good that some of the pressure is off for some of us a bit, but also a bad thing because I personally feel that we have some very dedicated Agents here who I don't want to lose (and I think would damage EPOCH if they did go) and it worries me that closing the site might break one of the major bonds we have as a group.

So I'd like to present another possible option; somethinig that other people have hinted to or mentioned in the above posts and across the website...

We Temporarily Modifiy The Content Of This Site:

What do I mean by that? I mean we throttle down on the TOR stuff a bit (but not completely of course) and instead explore some of our other interests a bit more. I'd really like it if we could all find an MMO we could play while waiting for TOR as well, to get our group dynamic together - we've all seen how we RP together, but not that much when it comes to doing things like group questing / big bosses as a group. I guess what I'm saying is that we only have limited TOR stuff to go on, but we're here as a group, why not do more together? Possible gaming nights, that sort of thing....

Some valid concerns and possible solutions here already, thanks guys. I have to agree with a lot of what people have said here and a lot of the focus is on RP and game retention.

I'm going to make a start on some possible solutions so any input would be great.

A New Guild-Lore Related RP (Chatroom?)

One of the things that has been putting me off of late is as Soude so eloquently put it (lol!) is "self-interested RP". True E.P.O.C.H is a character driven guild but there have been quite a few RP's posted that have made me think sure, its nice RP but it's all a bit a-day-in-the-life of 'character X'. I think that it might be an idea to go back to basics, where E.P.O.C.H were assigned missions or even better work on some stories that will actually have an effect on our guild lore. A lot of the focus of late has just been about a chosen character, but if we design stories that involve all the Agency as the center piece then I think the interest may start to pick up again. To add to this I think having 2 GM's for this kind of RP would be a better move. That way if one is too busy with other priorities it can be continued by the other. The only problem I can forsee is getting members to participate and stay active within the story. If we can conquer that everything should go according to plan.


Activity Requirements

As most of us are torn on whether to put the guild on a hiatus or not myself and L-Dubz have been discussing the subject of activity and the problem of the lack of a game. I think it might be an idea to loosen our guild activity requirements, at least until the new year or a month or so before TOR's release. A few of our members don't even visit the guild site anymore and I'm guessing it's because, like me, they're fed up of the wait and have lost interest in TOR at this current moment in time. Come release we may see a large improvement and even some old faces return. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they left in the first place was solely down to the fact that their patience had worn thin with the wait, and quite rightly so. The amusing thing I find about the lack of activity is that some of our old members have left because they believe that activity in higher in other guilds. I can assure you that this is a complete myth. Everyone is suffering from this problem at the minute and for a small guild we've actually got pretty high activity rates, even compared to some of the larger guilds.

Anyway I'll try and think of more solutions along the way but keep the input coming guys. We'll get out of this mess we've got ourselves into I'm sure of it.

Sureshot wrote:

We'll get out of this mess we've got ourselves into I'm sure of it.

I personally blame LucasArts/BioWare for failing to let us know when our damn game is ready

But yeah, all valid points. I was thinking on stuff last night about the Guild as a whole and I (personally - this isn't a 'guild viewpoint') think we're coming unstuck because this site was designed and modelled to promote TOR which isn't out until 2011. I think frankly we should be pretty proud of ourselves having gone this far (many other guilds folded ages ago) but we also need to consider that we need more than just TOR stuff in the run-up to the release of this game.

After some thought I don't think closing the guild until release will actually do any good (except maybe give us admins a break ) but we also can't keep up this momentum with the small amount of TOR updates we're getting.

I think we need to designate certain tasks to the admins to keep the TOR updates in place (Sureshot tends to recreate the SWTOR updates into a place we can discuss them, for example), but we should also adapt this place to better suit our needs.

We're a group of gamers (Roleplaying, Video-Games etc) with a love for Star Wars. Essentially, if you remove the TOR aspect, thats why we're all here. I suggest we build on that. I'm going to need someone to replace Randomfest as an RP Assist and from my Admin side I'm going to concentrate on RP.

I recommend changing this place (at least in the run-up to TOR) into a Gaming Community that promotes TOR; so we can organise some online gaming, RP, and some nice heated discussions Essentially what we were doing before but opening the doors to more than just TOR.

I should restate that this is just my opinion, not Guild Opinion

EDIT: @ Soude & PJK: If any of this comes to pass, how would one of you feel about becoming a "Games Co-ordinator"? (As in, sort out game nights etc for stuff like MMO's or other online Multiplayer Games; eg: non-rp)

With the last events of my private life, I'll focus on writings cause I've promised this to mom. So big work on sight.

If that's okay with Rick, I'll let him handle the game co-ordinator thing. He surely knows more about games than I do. What we could also do would be a new sub-forum about non-swtor games. This subforum would include one topic for each game and people would list them as wiling to play the game.

Exemple:
Non-SWTOR subforum
- - > Left 4 dead (LW, SS, PJK (for example) will post to say how awesome the game is and how interested they are to play it.)
- - > Borderland (Me and whoever...)

On the whole I think LW's idea would work best for members new and old, with a smidgen of other options as well to seal the deal.

Currently we're a TOR Guild waiting to actually play while trying to do a bit of RP to kill some of the time inbetween and also play some games for fun.

But the games not out and RP lose's intrest if the games soo far away especially if were building characters that next weeks update may say we can't use species wise or may reduce to an enemy or has ruled out the class for another faction :/

Me and LW were texting about this saying a streamlined forum with about 3 threads might work better for keeping the Guild on Hiatus by reducing commitment but keeping the guild alive but I think that may weaken the Guild in the long run.
Making us into a gaming community I think is a much better idea because the simple fact is most of the longer serving members are and even ex-members are gamers that like to play similar games. It will keep the guild together and is non commital becuase if you want to stay and RP thats still here but if you want to game you can and it'll strengthen our ties.

Also as Guild it might be a good recruitment technique (not that I'd say we should be recruiting atm tbh we should take a break and just enjoy ourselves for a bit) "Were a Guild waiting for TOR with a strong active gaming group DOING STUFF NOW!" is better then "We're twiddling our thumbs".

I still think we should have an Activity rethink for members put the EPOCH TOR side on hiatus ie possibly stopping any future crossguild RPs etc (but possibly doing some game team ups) and get maybe a more foucussed RP effort going for those who are interested in forum RP and Guild wise.

I disagree! Twiddling one's thumb is very entertaining and important >_<












Forgive me... French joke!

Caryington wrote:

- - > Borderland (Me and whoever...)

+ LW + PJK + Tando

So here's some ideas we've gathered thus far:

1. Put the recruitment on hold and concentrate on the members that we do have.

To add to this I think we should still accept new applications but be sure to warn them that we're on a semi-break.

2. Make EPOCH a gaming community, and hopefully find a game to fill out the space until near TOR's release.

I would suggest re-opening the Neranians LotRO kinship, however this time everyone should start a character from scratch and we'll test out our buddy system ready for TOR. For some reason I've noticed people are under the impression that Chat RP is the extent of roleplay in E.P.O.C.H. For those that joined us on LotRO or AoC you'll fully understand that where EPOCH's strength lies is actually roleplaying in game, which is what we'll be doing in TOR.

3. Cut down on the admin duties and actually start having fun!

4. Take part in Guild RP when possible and cut out cross-guild RP.

5. Lessen the activity demands until at least a month or so before TOR's release.

Hows that sound?

I'm for a comon MMO and for the break in recruitement.

I am against reconsidering our recruitement requirements, these fits (to me) perfectly our guild concept.

My only problem with not lessening the demands is that we're about to lose quite a few members. If you guys are ok with that for now though, then thats ok with me. Lets just hope as we get closer to the games release that we'll suddenly get a lot of interest again. I'll certainly have to step up the recruitment when the time comes thats for sure.

Speaking from a point of view of someone who quit 3 months ago for various reasons some of which are above, I think one of the main problems is boardom due to no TOR yet but also for agents it's also about having nothing to do . For example no new RP for them and new people to try, also a lack of roles within the guild, it's frustrating to have leaders/officers almost complain about having too much to do! (BTW this is not having a pop) and agents some of which have very useful skills with nothing to do. I know TOR is not out until 2011 but think about it that's 6 Weeks away, we now have information on PvP/ crafting not alot of info yes but enough for the creation of a forum section for ideas on how we are going to implement these into EPOCH. I really hope we don't get side tracked with another MMO and not be ready for launch.

Tando's my messiah

I agree with Tando mostly (and welcome back ) mainly about the structure of the Guild comment, although I still think the game is a long way off mainly due to the lack of information that we are getting not really from the site but from press releases etc I still think we a re a bit formless as a Guild in game in quite a few aspects.

I mean atm we know vaguely who will be which class in the game and maybe what advanced class and thats it, no other ingame Guild structure has been discussed, that may be due to the long release or the lack of some details or maybe we have done some work but we just dont have a clearly implemented section to highlight it but it still feels a bit formless.
I tried a while ago to bring this up with the Ingame Roles but it was kind of misconstrued as a thread to try secure the roles for yourselves

I think now a good time to maybe restart that discussion, we do have alot more info in place and alot of it wont even need TOR info, Guild banking, Raids etc will fall into general MMO fare so I think alot of this would be easy to pin down now.


I also think now we have this new gaming section and stuff we can make a new role for that so its not the admin trying to pull it together, as for RP I'm not sure whats going on I know soudes doing one but I think we have a guild one planned right?

Something else I'd like to bring up is what is the final guild structure going to be? Maybe this is something which also could be looked into, one option might be to have SS head of the non force users and LW head of force users (which I think it is as it stands) then have 4 officers one for each class each with a certain role ie PVP organiser. Finally introduce something like a Champion for each class, which could have a role attached like guild banker? Also to spice the champions up a little have a re-vote maybe every 6 months and have it that only that class maybe vote for their champion ie BH vote for BH champion? Is there still talk of a new website?

I'd have to disagree with the last thought. (and welcome back messiah ). Champions aren't needed in terms of what they'd do, and with 4 Officers, Champions and several others with bigger roles (ie. Initiate mentor) then that would be most of the guild high ranked as as we all know, there have to be more core members than higher members. From an RP perspective, Champions don't sound secret agency-y. But everything else is music to my ears.

I think we should bring this up at the next guild meeting alongside discussing it here

I like the idea of a champion, mainly becuase in my last guild we had the guild tank and he was the 'champion' I suppose but each class could technically have its own champion and we could have a vote every so often like you say to keep it interesting maybe have a duel etc
It would be a great honour title as well wouldnt it so you could have certain points for it like helping members etc

I'm concerned about assigning roles based on positions within the guild tho, ie if your a champion or an officer you get assigned a role like Guild Banker, I think each role should be based on skill rather then rank although i suppose gaining a role would provide a rank.

I think anyway we need to decide on what roles we need in the guild before we can assign them personally, I remember one I talked about was in relation to freelancing and was a role to take on RP contracts such as finding other players to kill RP style if they dont implement a actual bounty system, thats a role that would need to be added to our Guild structure specifically as well as the standard Guild Banker etc

As I recall E.P.O.C.H. will be rather small RP guild since the starting number is maximum 20 agents. Since we want it to be a place for the Players, not only their characters I think we won't reach max 20 fast. I once made a mistake of creating to complicated guild structure with more than 12 different functions. And for 6 months we had half of them free - first because there was only few of us, and then not all of new members where suited or had desire to fulfil some key roles in the guild.

So I think we may have a brainstorm about those new game features, but we should keep the guild structure simple and clear for now. We can always add some more when we will have more people and gain some experience with TOR and it's options.

But every discussion about E.P.O.C.H. in TOR is another step to create this guild unique! So go for it! We can even make some topic to describe individually our expectations from the game and from the guild.

Harlequin2 wrote:

I'd have to disagree with the last thought. (and welcome back messiah ). Champions aren't needed in terms of what they'd do, and with 4 Officers, Champions and several others with bigger roles (ie. Initiate mentor) then that would be most of the guild high ranked as as we all know, there have to be more core members than higher members. From an RP perspective, Champions don't sound secret agency-y. But everything else is music to my ears.

Double post

I like the idea of a Champion actually, obviously we could rename it but think of it as an honour role withing the classes, you have the maybe head of the BH's who gives advice etc but the champion could be someone who helps the lowers members, goes on extra raids, gives money, collects stuff for the guild bank, gives general advice, is a specialist in a certain class and is a high level in that specific class.

If it was open to competition and we gave points for each requirements based on performance it would encourage more helpfull behaviour in the guild, infact we could have 'Champions' (we could call them 'Class Leaders' 'Department leaders' 'class specialists' etc) as the head of each class instead of having a seperate position created for them.

The strucure could boil down to 6 Department leaders (Force and BH and IAs, and then 4 champions leading each class) and then a number of ingame officers who do Guilds roles (like Guild banker) and I'm sure we'd have some overlap.

I think this came across wrong, I meant for the champions to be like a right hand man ( nothing sexual PJK) to the officer in charge of that class. Also I used the term champion as I couldn't think of anything else I don't see the "Champions" as another officer rank I see them as the best of a class nothing more.

Okay we have 20 members
2 Guild Leaders
4 Officers
3 Specialists (Initate/RP/Freelancer)
6 Champions
That's a total of 15 people and from what you're saying this doesn't even include other roles and ambassadors! So does everyone have a role? That's a bit much don't you think? I think advise on classes can easily be taken from people who are higher labeled at the time, or have done something you haven't. Yeah, I don't think we need Champions. What we do need are some more Specialists (Guild Banker/Contract Searcher/Intel Gather/Crafting Leader/etc.)