[A] New Alliance Military Guild for All Races - gouging interest

First things first, somebody has opened my eyes and made me see the Light. I am looking if there is interest in an Alliance Military-themed guild open to ALL races. Since I am still in the process of gouging interest, it means that I do not have an Awesome Long Concept. In short, the guild will start small (squad-sized) and slowly grow through RP to be at most a platoon (so Guild leader will never have a rank higher than Captain). It will be a special operations unit, meaning it has some freedom in deployment - events all over the world. RP will be military-themed, that means military events and occasional w-pvp, as well as adventuring Dungeon Master events. The most important part is that it is open to all races and all (good/neutral) religions (or lack of religion). I feel there is a distinct lack of an -alliance- guild, and all military guilds right now are fully racial or religion-based.

Wait...but what about 'Omen of Discord', the guild you already run?

It will remain, but should this project get off the ground, Omen will not really be a 'main active guild'. Not that it is. Most members right now are alts who log on only for events and very rarely for casual RP. There won't be a major change.

So, nice thread. What of it?

Post here if you are interessted in joining, as I rather not jump into complete dark and wonder whether I get 0 or 2 members.

So...will you wait for 20 members before you get off your lazy ass and do some work fleshing the guild out?
No, I need ~3 active members to get started. So if I get interest from 3 mains or active alts, I will get off my lazy ass.

Will the guild somehow make use of 5.1 storyline and be active in Pandaria?
Of course!

I'd be interested.

and all military guilds right now are fully racial or religion-based

TGC accepts all races under certain circumstances.

Checked your registry-page. Hmm, I see your point. But it is not the same. Don't worry, we shouldn't do too much member-stealing from one another the way it looks. But we could be bestest of allies

While i enjoy military type of roleplaying i know i wouldn't have enough time for this. You remember what happen with Evelyn and Omen? I joined, played some time and now i haven't logged on her for weeks.

If this military guild accepts Dark Arts in the service of the Alliance, enough for War Sect and this to merge (we're about 3-5 i think) i would have interest, as it would include my main which i am active on.

However, that is not my thing to decide, as i am the lowest of the lowest in War Sect least now.

We will see how RP goes, I've given the Dark Arts (ie: Warlocks/Spriests/Deathknights) only the barests of thoughts so far. Due to guild's open nature, they are of course accepted. The idea of the guild is NOT to exclude any RPer based on IC class&race, however IC personality may be enough cause for a rejection. So....if DK in question goes about using necromancy idly and having skeletal servants serve his fresh blood for breakfast....then no!

As majority of military guilds are either Racial and Religion, Alliance serving Warlocks and the like have no place, which to my knowledge led to the creation of guilds like War Sect. There is just not any place where those good "bad" guys could go.

Indeed, that is why I am including them as long as they are good bad guys. And not like Lexgrad, who says he is good but then attacks northshire and steals a Lectress' soul.

Melnerag wrote:Indeed, that is why I am including them as long as they are good bad guys. And not like Lexgrad, who says he is good but then attacks northshire and steals a Lectress' soul.

I wont tolerate any slandering of Judge Lexgrad!
Justice will be done!

Melnerag wrote:Indeed, that is why I am including them as long as they are good bad guys. And not like Lexgrad, who says he is good but then attacks northshire and steals a Lectress' soul.

Waaaait.. if you mean Lectress Yvienna he did not manage to steal her soul, he did a good job trying though:P And he tried more than one time! ;D

This looks intriguing. I do miss ye olde days when there was a lot of military guilds. I'll see if I sign up or not, either way you have my support. Best of luck.

I will post some more information soon (ie: tommorow)

Everything is Work In Progress.

Right, since this is not a guild concept but the process of creating a guild concept I might as well be a little bit more elaborate. So let’s start with what inspired the creation process. At the core of it is my own, and other people’s search for a guild. I once rolled a Dwarf and wanted to join an alliance military guild. I either had to join the Three Hammers (which is Dwarf-only), or the Disciples of Light (which required me to be religious). Death Knights, Warlocks, Night Elves and Draenei face similar problems….but that a Dwarf, one of the Core Alliance Races, would have such a problem…well, something is distinctly odd!

Then we also have a fact that the Old Alliance still keeps a tight hold. Humans, Dwarves and Gnomes form the backbone of the Alliance and we see them as NPCs in key positions and in RP as leaders. Humans are the most widespread race among the RP population, and many key characters on alliance RP scene are humans.

This leads me to what I actually want to do: make an alliance military guild for all races and class, which can be joined without going through a labyrinth of conditions (Elves can join, if they swear loyalty to the King of) A guild that is not led by a member of the Old Alliance (Human, Dwarf or Gnome).

Then there also is my passion for a good story, especially a story of a guild’s emergence from nothing to something. Add to that my not-so-secret liking for adventure-RP and campaigning, and you get a perfect mix.

What I had so far, is making use of the newest lore and the newest continent – Pandaria, while at the same time including the old –and- giving people something they want but usually can’t yet do. RP in Pandaria before 5.1.

Admiral Taylor has converted a group of Pandaren farmers in Kun Lai to Alliance and is equipping and training them. The guild will start in Kun Lai, as a Taylor-trained paramilitary militia including pro-alliance Pandas –and- Alliance adventurers ICly in Pandaria already. In the period between the guild’s foundation and 5.1, this militia will engage in activities throughout the continent – fighting the horde, adventuring, fighting local villains, training, preparing. Once 5.1 arrives and the Alliance Fleet lands, the guild will be there in Karasang Wilds to assist the landing and will be recognized as part of the Alliance Military (transformation from paramilitary), and also open up to all and sundry. Shortly afterwards, there will be redeployments from Pandaria to the rest of the world to recruit and role-play in the Old World to complete the transformation. Of course, as you guessed, the focus of the guild is to really give the New Alliance a place on the Alliance stage and bring this feeling of a great, tolerant multi-racial Grand Alliance. Something that I saw lacking in RP with the prevalence of strong racial guilds on Defias.

That is all for now, I will share more as I ponder and flesh out. Don’t hesitate to ask questions!

Everything is work in progress

It is time to reflect. I am looking back at all multi-racial military or just military guilds I knew rather well and am trying to learn some lessons. Let’s face it, I am a thief and assimilator. I take any idea I like and turn it around, fitting it with other ideas. And I only rarely give credit. The Shining Stand , to me, is the Alliance Guild par excellence. It was led by a Dwarven priest, it allowed all races it organically incorporated warlocks, it was active in w-pvp and taking a central stage in organizing and creating the events for the server. It was a great guild. Of course, I will never be able to match Shining Strand’s numbers (200 active members at start!?). I know this will earn me Amaryl’s Ire, but there is one thing about the Shining Stand I always disliked – to me it always somehow lacked distinct character. Which is what all large guilds suffer from, in my eyes. I will not speak of The Alliance Watch , which was similar but with even less character. We are slowly moving away from the early period of Great Ancient Guilds and to a more modern time of smaller projects. Theramore Guilds, although not cross-racial, showed me a great possibility of using naval deployment. They also displayed another danger – the Lure of Stormwind. Theramore guilds were always in the end recruited to fight criminals and cultists and act like guards. Stormwind Regiment and the Blazing Shields, again not cross-racial, taught me another thing…just how damaging politics can be to a military guild.

So, for this guild I am taking the things I personally enjoy the most about military RP and trying to get rid of all the elements I think are dangerous.

I used to run a w-pvp guild on Ravenholdt long ago, and I loved the small numbers. We would deploy no more than 5-7 members and go bash some Alliance. On Defias, with Ere Argus, we had similar small-scale events with the Orcs of the Red Blade. So this is what I am defiantly adding – wpvp doesn’t have to be about massive zergs, it doesn’t need 30 hours of work to organize. Sometimes you just need a contact on another side, a few lines of Battletag exchange and you are read to have a busy and fun (and drama-free!) evening.

AWoW and Kalimdor Campaigns showed that campsite RP, if done well, is much more enjoyable than run-of-the-mill PvP bashing. That too will be the focus. Combine Military RP with small-scaled skirmishes and you get a great mix that can provide fun for days if not weeks.

Thelos introduced me to Dungeon Master events, which I pounced at and assimilated (Hey! I gave credit this time!). And they are fun. Combine –them- with campsite RP, military skirmishes and you can have fun for a month.

Valestrion taught me (I give credit again!) that preparation is as fun as the battle. When you create a large-scale event, it is as much fun recruiting allies and doing the preparation as it is roleplaying. As Thelos would say (more credit!) “Let’s milk this cow!”. I intend to incorporate a lot of fun preparation (stripping away all the boring preparation) when it comes to most events. That is also fairer towards members. Let’s face it, logging on and going “Oh, its Thursday. Event today. But I got no idea what it is about or why it is done” is less-than-fun. Good foreshadowing and….*cough* foreplay are important.

This is a list of things I want. Now about a few things I –don’t- want. I don’t want the guild to become a stereotyped military guild with shouting drill-sergeant. ICly it is not a Regiment or a Brigade, it will be at most a platoon. In other words, everybody knows everybody. I am interested in capturing the comradeship, the brotherhood, the putting together of different talents and skills instead of drill-sergeant shouting and badmouthing of privates.

I also don’t want the guild to lose character. It –will- be rather close and cosy, very free (deploying all over the world) and staunchly pro-alliance and reliable. And cross-racial. I won’t of course force it, but I would prefer if all officers are NOT humans. I don’t want to get involved with Guarding or Politics, as it is always to detriment to military nature of the guild. “Important Alliance Person C is corrupt?” Very nice. Let’s bash some horde.

And that is all on this one for now, don’t hesitate to ask questions!

Apart from the "but I would prefer if all officers are not humans" bit, this reminds me an awful lot of The Alliance Watch. Which is a -massive- plus, I had the best time in that guild.

I think perhaps, however, you might want to re-think your stance on keeping all humans away from power in the guild. Firstly, you can't really avoid it if it ends up making sense, and secondly you can't simply assume that because you have a human high in the ranks, you're going to get dragged into the political circle.

There are humans that can't cope with standing in the council meetings for the entire duration, let alone dragging an entire guild in.

I won’t of course force it, but I would prefer if all officers are NOT humans

In other words, if I need an officer and I am pondering between Human and non-human, I go for non-human. If I need an officer, and I have a human character who is just awesome and fits spot on, I take him. I won't make the guild anti-human for sure.

As for Alliance Watch, my memory is very faulty, but I remember not liking it much due to having troubles with the Guild Leader (Saul, right?) So that might've poisoned my perspective on the whole guild.

I might be interested... I'll have to think about it a bit more though.

What will the tabard look like?

I got absolute no idea what the tabard will look like! It will probably be in alliance colors, though.

Will you be going to Lion's landing at some point with this? /PEER

If Lion's Landing is alliance base in 5.1, then the answer is an emphatic YES. (depending on our levels, we will either move to Lion's Landing fully....but if we have lowbies who can't do the dailies and activate the landing, we will camp somewhere else)

The tabard should be entirely green hint hint.

I believe you do not have to do dailies to activate the Landing, it is there. From what I have read it will work a bit like Quel'danas, dailies = upgrades > bigger base > server wide. It will not be phased from what I know, THOUGH there will be the problem of Horde questing there 24/7.

Melnerag wrote:As for Alliance Watch, my memory is very faulty, but I remember not liking it much due to having troubles with the Guild Leader (Saul, right?) So that might've poisoned my perspective on the whole guild.

By the time I'd joined, Saul was long gone. Maxus was leading it by then. I imagine that's why I've a better memory of the guild than you :p

An alliance, multi-race military guild?

Thumbs up to that, its something you've been sorely missing. Havent seen a fully active one since-- yeah the Alliance watch... that was a while ago

Best of luck with it.