What Direction Should The RA Take After Gree?

[Revenchent]

First and foremost, fantastic job with the invasions so far. You all have performed exceptionally well.

That being said, the admins and I have been discussing what path the faction should take moving forward from Gree.

We have settled between a handful of options, though faction members are encouraged to submit their own ideas below

 

[Cenric Marus]

Cant vote but I support the last option.

The biggest problem with the Jedi over the last few years is the simple fact that there has always been like 5 factions for us. Everyone does something different, no one tries to work together. Folding into the Silver Jedi and influencing leadership there is a great way to get the Jedi back on track to actually winning against the Sith.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

A big trick RE: Jedi is that everyone on the site has their own idea of the Jedi. I grew up reading the old EU/Playing Dark Forces, so my Jedi are gun toting loose with the Force, intention matters types.

Others look at the Prequels and Clone Wars show for their Jedi. Getting the Light Side into one faction is really tricky, because we all have our own idea. But the thing that has happened recently is that we join together. RA, RR, SJO, GA were all together in the invasions/Endgame stuff. Fold only if you think the faction echoes your intention. Trying to influence may not work well.

 

[Placeholder 0128]

It's not so much getting it all under one faction, so much as us lacking the proper memberbase to meet the Sith Empire's memberbase. We've got folks fighting 2-3 people at a time because we're outnumbered. As much as I would love and miss the idea of a fully united LS front, it probably won't happen.

Combining with either of those factions and adding our numbers together would make the invasions a hell of a lot less stressful when it comes to posting, as we were always meant to be something that slowed the SIth Empire down, never to stop it entirely.

There's always also the possibility of us breaking off to build up on our own steam, though that will take time, will require more effort for the memberbase, and would further divide the light, which is something I have a lot of trepidation about doing.

Keep the comments coming folks.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

I consider myself more of a loose affiliate than a member, but I figure I might as well give some of my thoughts, since I've been in the two invasions.


I can't see option 4 being a viable one. No offence to SJO, they're a fine faction, but they're not an invasion-orientated one. Their main activity consists of dominions and faction threads, with the occasional skirmish (where they're always the defender). They relocated from Voss to Kashyyyk because they wanted to get away from invasions, after they were invaded by FO and GE repeatedly and their invasion of Sith-controlled Mirial ended in defeat.


Furthermore, given the big disparity in size between both factions, I do not think TRA being able to influence direction over there is a realistic prospect. I also cannot see the SJO wanting to be 'taken over'. I know I would not in their shoes.


People keep talking about how the Jedi must unite...but the GA didn't beat OS by getting all the Jedi together. They simply got stuff done. Much like OS got Sith flocking to it by wrecking the Republic.


Regarding invasions, I'd like to point out that PvP is actually the least important part in the judgement process (much to my annoyance, but that's the way it is). Hence why you get situations where a faction has logically lost all its big fights, but is still judged as a winner because the judges believed they did better in the various categories. As for numbers, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it was clear from the moment this faction went major that it would operate at a considerable numerical disadvantage because TSE is a bigger faction, even if we take into account that many characters are alts.


As Coren says, everyone here has a different idea of Jedi. You have the NJO type Jedi, you have the people who believe the prequel Jedi order is an ideal to return to, you have 'Grey Jedi' and the pacifist crowd etc. And thus you get bickering about which type of Jedi is the 'true' one. And lots of unproductive conclaves.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

Some suggestions for y'all, if you want to keep the ship afloat:

• Give the faction forum some love. Yeah, I get it, you do your discussions and planning on Discord. But if a new member presses the join faction button and looks at the forum, all they'll see are a bunch of announcements and like two polls. Make the faction look like it's a coma patient. Besides, not everyone hangs out on Discord a lot and a lot of important stuff there simply gets lost in all the off-topic chatter and memes.
• Recruit, recruit. Especially among new writers. If I recall correctly, a TRA ad said that characters in the group should not use canon playbys. If you personally don't want to use them, cool. But trying to make it a general rule just comes across as elitist and patronising. Besides, as the last two invasions have shown, you really need the numbers.
• Tying in with the above, while doing things ICly is laudable, don't make it a requirement for people to do an IC thread to join. It's not something that can be done realistically anyway. It also creates opportunity costs. Just offer the option.
• And when you advertise, don't flood said ad with regulations. It's supposed to attract people, not make them question whether they want to join. Ads must be short and sweet: Brief faction background, mission statement, options for cool stuff people can do.
• Give people stuff to do outside of invasions. Even a faction that's focused on invasion needs that.
• The faction may benefit from additional staff, if it's supposed to stay independent. This would reduce the pressure on the shoulders of its staff members and allow them to focus more on the big picture.
• Invasions are work. You need planning, cohesion. Not just before an invasion, but throughout it. Especially now since PvP's importance is quite low, so dramatic individual duels don't score that many points. Agree on a narrative before the invasion, organise people in a buddy system of sorts if possible, stick to said narrative, make sure the actions of various members contribute to it and don't blatantly contradict it.

 

[Eugen Aker]

[member="Calico Tal'verda"]

Oh, this again.

It troubles me that the RA is openly discussing attempting to hijack the SJO (unilateral "consolidation/merging") for your own ends while we're providing you with the single largest bloc of allied support in the current invasion. Most of the people who volunteered to participate in the invasion were Silvers.

For the last time, we are not interested in a merger or some radical change in culture. We don't want to be the Galactic Republic/Dominion/Army of Light/Galactic Alliance, and I wish you would respect that decision. The SJO exists because many Jedi writers were tired of being used as mindless hitmen and the obsession over the map game.

The only path for anyone from the RA or other groups that join the SJO is assimilation, just like with any other Major. That said, we're always down to support other LS groups as we always have.

The problem with this group, in particular, isn't a divided base among Major LS groups (we're all more or less on board tangoing with DS groups), but ones of your own making:

• It's pretty evident that this group wasn't ready to go Major. Already you guys are talking about throwing in the towel even before the end of one invasion cycle. Some more patience needed to be exercised to build up your base and get some things going outside of invasions. You can still do this now, if you back off from invasions with the SE, and may work out a deal for some smaller story-based campaigns for the near term. That definitely involves using the Nomad Mandate to move away from the SE border.
• There seems to be a serious lack of effort in recruiting, and you when you do recruit, you're looking at the wrong demographics for a Rebel themed group. (You're not directly competing with the SJO, but the ORC who just picked up the majority of ex-GA writers.) Also, I think there are about 4 or 5 active minor Rebel groups that would actually be ripe for consolidation as sub-factions, it just takes some people biting back on their egos.
• I don't know how else to put it, but your discord chat is pretty off-putting to prospective members. I know for a fact that you guys lost at least a handful of writers that way. There's nothing wrong with socializing and sharing some dank memes, but you guys could tone down the crudeness. This is a recurring issue throughout every iteration of the Dominion. Maybe relegate that sort of behavior to a locked channel or something away from public view, or make a new server altogether, I dunno.

Anyways, if the RA staff ever wants to discuss things with the SJO, then we're always down. Just please no more merger discussions, thank you.

 

[Kira]

[SIZE=9pt]If we stay major or go minor I plan to keep Kira showing up every once and awhile to do her healing thing. Regardless if this faction stays major or goes minor the DS factions will still be on the attack and people will still need to be healed so they can keep up the fight. [/SIZE]

 

[Placeholder 0128]

[member="Jyoti Nooran"] - The original suggestion was to merge our memberbase into the SJO to fight the TSE with an equal number of writers, as we thought you guys were stepping fully into the war, not to influence or control the faction. The RA's existence has always been to stall the TSE while the SJO, the RR, and the (now late) GA could rise back to prominence. I don't think the leadership has ever suggested trying to influence the SJO into doing anything.

Also, we aren't talking about wholly throwing in the towel. The faction was never meant to be more than a PVP faction, of which it's accomplished its goal. A good number of our writers haven't been enjoying that PVP however, which is why we're talking about just moving or merging with one of the other majors to fight the Sith on equal footing. It has definitely been a numbers problem lol, and one I could remedy if I had the time to actively recruit. I'm hoping to grab up someone else who does.

You're probably right though on the crudeness. I've been leading successful MMO guilds since I was a kid, and the primary reason I did that was because other RP guilds had language control. We couldn't curse, make certain jokes, etc because it would look bad on the guild. I have a pretty dark sense of humor, so I could never be myself in those places.

I usually don't enforce any sort of language rules over my factions because I believe in total freedom of self, but this environment is different. I find people take even OOC comments far more seriously and are much more quick to choose to be offended than the MMO environment - it doesn't jive with me. I find the groups without language rules and are allowed to act how they like OOC grow closer than groups that do not. It might have been bad for the board, but it's helped me to develop IRL friendships with some fantastic people, and set the more relaxed individuals at ease. Unfortunately this makes recruitment a far more hands on process as the insular nature of the group may look duanting to outsiders, which requires a member of that group to show them that we're friendly and open,, which honestly is usually better in my opinion, but I personally just don't have the time to get hands on in the right way.

We'll probably put up some form of language control or something for the sake of quality control, though personally I believe that people choose what they're offended by, and should be more worried about why they're choosing to let things bother them than silencing the humor of others.

Just felt the need to clarify before I start hearing about more of my 'evil plans' to take over the board or control every faction start spreading again.

 

[Geel Zlta]

My input is option one.

Why? Because I joined the RA as opposed to the other named Factions for what it stood for - it was a good fit for my character (and this whole stream of conscienceness diatribe is entirely IC).

Why? For what others have said. There are many stripes of Jedi around. None are right - they all are - and working as allies works well enough. Working as one cohesive Faction? I can't see it.

The Sith are able to be liberal with their definition of being a Sith but this character could not necessarily remain in a Faction that had to accommodate a different Jedi doctrine.

Just my opinion of course

Actually, no. I need to stop - right now.