Browsing Category MMOs

History of TRE guilds – Reality Check

by on ·Canis, Interviews, MMOs

Love them or not, we all know who they are. It is coded in every fellow pvper, that when they see that guild tag in a warzone, then it probably won’t end well for their team. But besides the common reaction “It’s RC, we’re screwed”, what do we actually know about them? To be honest with you all, I didn’t know much, so the interview with the guild’s GM, Rummel, and the Co-GM, Anthis was very illuminating, if I can say that. I’m certain you crave the information I have, so to not keep you in the dark any longer, let me present you the dramatic history of Reality Check!

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Leadership – Interview with RC’s Rummel and Anthis

by on ·Gamer Culture, Interviews, MMOs, Noctua, SWTOR

After a Skype chat with Ravs about gaming and blogging we decided to write a twin piece about in-game leadership – specifically that required when leading a guild in SWTOR. She would focus on PvE guilds and me PvP. My very first thought was that I would love to get an interview with the GM of old Reality Check; a guild which gained it’s reputation on the server for putting up a fight against Nostrum Dolus. By going from occasionally queuing with unfavourable compositions Autumn 2012 to being a force to be reckoned with on TOFN by mid 2013 RC managed to establish themselves in the top tier bracket. With 60+ members, a lot of which were extremely strong minded, stubborn individuals, how does one manage the guild and keep it together?

Since the removal of 8v8 warzones the guild has unfortunately been mostly inactive. Being new to the game this interview would be especially interesting to me since I was not around at the time of ranked 8v8. Getting it however was not easy, I had to use all my powers of persuasion, but luckily for me I somehow tend to get what I want in the end. Rummel, GM of RC, finally agreed to conduct the interview with me under the condition that his friend, confidant and Co-GM Anthis could join – a condition I was happy to agree to.

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“Rules of conduct” and Ranked

by on ·Discuss!, Gamer Culture, Interviews, MMOs, Noctua, SWTOR

As a part of our theme week focusing on SWTOR and Ranked PvP previous to patch 2.0, I decided to write a piece about the rules that were agreed upon back in the beginning of year 2013. Anthis from Reality Check and Mylex from TWATS were two of the people present at the meeting held setting the terms of this agreement. Last Friday I brought them both on the GD TS hoping to find out more.

Mylex begins by telling me that before the server transfers between Nightmare Lands and TRE there was some but not much in terms of ranked activity on TRE. When the server merges happened the best team on TRE was LotD and on Nightmare Lands it was Nostrum Dolus. Mylex continues to explain that LotD didn’t do that well against ND in those first few days of queuing and subsequently over a period of time fell apart. A few of their better players moved to ToFN for a time. Eventually RC started queuing but up until then the only other regular teams were ND and TWATS.

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8v8 Ranked on TRE Part 2

by on ·MMOs, Mylex, SWTOR

To read part 1 of this article follow this link! 

By October or November 2012 the server had two regular teams in TWATs and Nostrum and some new semi-regular teams in Spaceballs, Dxun, Drop it like it’s Hoth and the first version of Reality Check.

Now, these guys started queuing of their own accord, either for the first time or as a return to action, but they benefited from coming in to an environment that had lost a lot of it’s toxicity. For that change in atmosphere to have taken place I clearly could not be the only person reaching out and building bridges. On the forums, where every word would be analysed and the fuse leading to the drama-bomb sat ready to be lit, an interesting thing started to happen. Unprompted, someone from each team would post each morning thanking the teams they had played the previous night and give hints as to the results, whilst being good losers and gracious winners. This in itself caught the eye of the guys in Group Three. When Group Three also got a sense of the positive and friendly atmosphere afforded to new teams, it became much easier for those guys to persuade the guildies to try some 8v8 ranked. They could, in good conscience, promise that they won’t get laughed it, that it will be fun and (because of the forums thread) they knew of people on both fleets that they could talk to about good times to queue etc.

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8v8 Ranked on TRE Part 1 (Why our server was better than yours)

by on ·MMOs, Mylex, SWTOR

Introduction:
Interested in the player involvement which SWTOR has always seemed to need to get ranked PvP off it’s feet I decided to ask Mylex to write us something about his own experiences on the subject. In the days of ranked 8v8 (despite heavy imbalance between classes and a shrinking PvP population on the server) Mylex and a few others made the competitive PvP scene a dynamic experience. This was done through tireless networking and forum activity. Here’s what happened!
-Noctua

8v8 Ranked on TRE Part 1 – Why our server was better than yours!

Okay, maybe not. But it was good and we went from virtually zero activity to 5-10 teams in the queue each day, which was unusual for the PVP servers and unheard of on the other PVE servers. It was also a great time to play on The Red Eclipse, but it was a long road to get that point.

And this is the story…

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GD’s first theme week!

by on ·Noctua, SWTOR

I’m excited to announce GD’s first theme week which will start day after tomorrow on Monday the 13th. We will be focusing on SWTOR, specifically Ranked PvP previous to patch 2.0. Below is what you can expect to see this coming week.

Monday 13th: 8v8 Ranked on TRE Part 1 (Why our server was better than yours) by Mylex
We are starting the week off by welcoming Mylex to the GD family with his first guest post. Interested in the player involvement needed to get ranked PvP in SWTOR off it’s feet I asked Mylex to share his experiences of ranked back in the days of 8v8.

Tuesday 14th: 8v8 Ranked on TRE Part 2 by Mylex
The end of Mylex story as well as some advice to anyone looking to try to make competitive PvP happen.

Thursday 16th: “Rules of conduct” and Ranked by Noctua
January 26th, 2013 members from RC, TWATS and ND held a meeting agreeing upon a list of rules that would improve the state of PvP which was suffering from heavy imbalance between classes. Yesterday I brought Mylex and Anthis to the GD TS and asked them questions about this occurrence. In this post we will go over what happened at the time as well as encourage a discussion about rules and agreements for ranked PvP in games like SWTOR.

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The Mystery of Ancient Hypergates

by on ·MMOs, Pyxis, Theories

As long as I can remember, when you enter an Ancient Hypergates game, people gather up at left. Left is default. Both sides are just as far away, you could go either way. (Like in a Voidstar.) Or you could always go for a split, like in ranked. But no. Left is ‘ours’. Right is ‘theirs’.

Why?

In my short career in retail, I was taught that shoppers cruise predictably through a shop. Counterclockwise. And sure enough, once you know this, you see it. All of them moving around counterclockwise. Like programmed drones. Scary.

But, in Ancient Hypergates counterclockwise would mean right…

What is going on here?

So far I have two theories.

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Will The Fallen Empire ‘Res’ SWTOR?

by on ·MMOs, Noctua, SWTOR

“Knights of the Fallen Empire”, the new SWTOR expansion, was announced at this years EA’s E3 press conference. This was done through stunning CG story telling. The expansion is due this October but has already created a stir within the SWTOR community. Holding our breaths, we are all waiting to find out if this is what will bring Star Wars: The Old Republic back up on its feet.

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Social Identity and Guilds in MMORPGs

by on ·Gamer Culture, MMOs, Noctua, Philosophy, Psychology, Theories

As you might have noticed by now I am always keen to know the reasons why people choose to game, especially in MMOs. The answer to this can reveal so much. So please, humour me for a second and answer me this:

Which of the following reasons describes your motivation for gaming most accurately?

  1. I like competition and enjoy pushing myself to be better.
  2. As well as meeting new interesting people, I play to spend time and maintain contact with the friends I have made in game.
  3. I log in order to sometimes get a break from RL by exploring virtual worlds, characters and story lines.

Of course we are most likely effected by more than one of these motivations but it is possible that one of them is more dominant than the rest. Are you an achievement, social or immersion focused gamer? What is interesting in thinking about this question is that it can effect how important your “Online Social Identity” is to you.

How we are seen by others is extremely important to us in real life but it clearly also transcends to online gaming. Let me explain myself.

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Why do we ‘troll’? – Guest writing for Rav!

by on ·Gamer Culture, MMOs, Noctua, Psychology, Theories

Good morning fellow gamers! The other day my friend Ravanel kindly asked me if I wanted to guest write on her blog today. Of course I said yes. So since my sleeping routines are getting no better and my addiction for writing you guys new blog posts is getting worse (!!!) I’ve been typing away on a new article exploring answers to the question “Why do we troll?”.

“Everyday users on the Internet—as well as clinicians and researchers1–7—have noted how people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say and do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel less restrained, and express themselves more openly. So pervasive is the phenomenon that a term has surfaced for it: the online disinhibition effect.” -The Online Disinhibition Effect, John Suler 2004

This is the subject examined in my latest blog post. To read it, jump over to the Ravalation blog and check it out here. Happy trolling everyone!

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