The level of conduct on Alliance chat has gone from questionable to weak in the past few months, and I can't seem to find any RBers that think otherwise. As far as I can tell, there's extremely little inter-guild pugging going on anymore, it's basically become an occasional chat channel. While YoHo isn't exactly promoting alliance events, I think the problem more is that RB members aren't comfortable with the gaming culture of these allied guilds. We aren't doing them or ourselves any favors by pointlessly sticking around if that's the case.
There are some who would rather see a better alternative before going anywhere though; to that end I have been looking around at some other alliances, but we need to have some idea what as a guild we would want out of an alliance.
- random chat/pick-up-groups: for many alliances, ally chat is just a place to get groups of strangers that average better than the local sector. If this is a high priority, large alliances have an appeal. They still need some level of quality for our guild though, or else you get the current situation.
- Friendship: this can be trickier unless you get guilds together that have a similar culture, but possibly more valuable than having a large group of strangers to draw upon. In this manner you get alliance chat used as a more comfortable shooting-the-breeze tool, and more inter-alliance groups form spontaneously without the need for grand planned events. If this is most important, then we'd need to go with people we already know well, which is sadly not too many for our members. For example, many of our members love Kindred Knight of Phoenix, but the recently joined Heaven's Royal Knights (who finally left ZoS), so there is question whether we could fit with them. Others we know are Kurzicks, which is it's own dilemma.
- Conduct: while our guild has worked pretty well with a minimum of rules, this tends to be the exception rather than the norm. (ie I'd say it's rare to find our quality without some more structure) This means thinking of ceding the freedom to say absolutely whatever on alliance chat in exchange for insulation from low-quality guilds. Alot of alliances that I've found which look decent tend expect at least respect between alliance members, and are not fond of frequent profanity, low humor, spamming for trade/pricecheck/etc. Personally I'm all for acting cleaner to keep out the trash, but then you all know I am a bit of a prude. HRK for example appears fairly strict on a G-rated channel, others like Seryia's GWTP seem looser but still expect family-friendly chat.
- Democratic Involvement. I actually think over-involvement in Ally politics is what got us into the ZoS mess, and I don't believe we have the critical mass of care to make it in a truly "peerless" alliance. That said we'd probably prefer having some level of say in who stays and goes.
- Trial Evaluation. Some guilds are able to join an Alliance they know just a bit about, try it out for a week or two, and then have the organization to move on if it isn't working. Given the amount of lethargy/apathy we've historically had towards Alliances, I'm guessing this isn't going to work so well for a guild, and there only seem to be a handful of alliances we are well acquainted with. I'm willing (and hope I'd get some help) to try and set up joint gaming sessions to get to know guilds from an alliance before taking the plunge.
- Luxon or Kurzick. Those of us playing Alliance Battles have been buildling up our Luxon track for skills, but the majority of the game's guilds are Kurzick, which means when sorting for the proverbial solid alliance in a heystack of lacklustre ones, there's defenitely more to find in the Kurzick camp. Also I haven't seen too much Alliance Battles of late anyway, and maybe some others wouldn't mind working on Kurzick track if they could get the bonus for donating. But it is a setback for those of us who have ground out our luxon titles, since you can't AB for the opposite faction of your guild, and luxons generally have less wait time than Kuzricks anyway.
- PvP. I know we're mostly a PvE guild looking for PvE alliance, but a few of our members might be interested in getting together for an organized outing from time to time, be it AB or GvG.
- There's also the Alliance-less option, but given the lack of political involvement, leaving ally chat off is just about equivalent.
For those who feel more apathetic about the current situation, I'd ask you to try and stretch your imaginations, and think "what if?" Our experience with past alliances may have been lukewarm to rotten; but what would an ideal alliance look like to you?
There are some who would rather see a better alternative before going anywhere though; to that end I have been looking around at some other alliances, but we need to have some idea what as a guild we would want out of an alliance.
- random chat/pick-up-groups: for many alliances, ally chat is just a place to get groups of strangers that average better than the local sector. If this is a high priority, large alliances have an appeal. They still need some level of quality for our guild though, or else you get the current situation.
- Friendship: this can be trickier unless you get guilds together that have a similar culture, but possibly more valuable than having a large group of strangers to draw upon. In this manner you get alliance chat used as a more comfortable shooting-the-breeze tool, and more inter-alliance groups form spontaneously without the need for grand planned events. If this is most important, then we'd need to go with people we already know well, which is sadly not too many for our members. For example, many of our members love Kindred Knight of Phoenix, but the recently joined Heaven's Royal Knights (who finally left ZoS), so there is question whether we could fit with them. Others we know are Kurzicks, which is it's own dilemma.
- Conduct: while our guild has worked pretty well with a minimum of rules, this tends to be the exception rather than the norm. (ie I'd say it's rare to find our quality without some more structure) This means thinking of ceding the freedom to say absolutely whatever on alliance chat in exchange for insulation from low-quality guilds. Alot of alliances that I've found which look decent tend expect at least respect between alliance members, and are not fond of frequent profanity, low humor, spamming for trade/pricecheck/etc. Personally I'm all for acting cleaner to keep out the trash, but then you all know I am a bit of a prude. HRK for example appears fairly strict on a G-rated channel, others like Seryia's GWTP seem looser but still expect family-friendly chat.
- Democratic Involvement. I actually think over-involvement in Ally politics is what got us into the ZoS mess, and I don't believe we have the critical mass of care to make it in a truly "peerless" alliance. That said we'd probably prefer having some level of say in who stays and goes.
- Trial Evaluation. Some guilds are able to join an Alliance they know just a bit about, try it out for a week or two, and then have the organization to move on if it isn't working. Given the amount of lethargy/apathy we've historically had towards Alliances, I'm guessing this isn't going to work so well for a guild, and there only seem to be a handful of alliances we are well acquainted with. I'm willing (and hope I'd get some help) to try and set up joint gaming sessions to get to know guilds from an alliance before taking the plunge.
- Luxon or Kurzick. Those of us playing Alliance Battles have been buildling up our Luxon track for skills, but the majority of the game's guilds are Kurzick, which means when sorting for the proverbial solid alliance in a heystack of lacklustre ones, there's defenitely more to find in the Kurzick camp. Also I haven't seen too much Alliance Battles of late anyway, and maybe some others wouldn't mind working on Kurzick track if they could get the bonus for donating. But it is a setback for those of us who have ground out our luxon titles, since you can't AB for the opposite faction of your guild, and luxons generally have less wait time than Kuzricks anyway.
- PvP. I know we're mostly a PvE guild looking for PvE alliance, but a few of our members might be interested in getting together for an organized outing from time to time, be it AB or GvG.
- There's also the Alliance-less option, but given the lack of political involvement, leaving ally chat off is just about equivalent.
For those who feel more apathetic about the current situation, I'd ask you to try and stretch your imaginations, and think "what if?" Our experience with past alliances may have been lukewarm to rotten; but what would an ideal alliance look like to you?
), care less about the rest. And generally like the alliance a lot.
).