The Church of Alvis

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthre ... ost3956295

Not that we were expecting that.

So CoA on the Republic side and Pod 6 on the Empire it is. And if at a later date they change it, Pod 6 gets folded into CoA.

Interesting that now they are hinting at the possiblility of some limited cross-faction grouping though.

Nice to know that you will be able to make alts of the opposite faction on the same server as well. Makes life easier for me since my interest in the different class storys is fairly strong and I have a feeling I'll be spending alot of time playing various characters to check them all out.

Separate chapters for each faction?

We will have to do that then. The question really becomes the following.

Do we:
a) want to focus our collective energy on one faction to start (ie everyone roll a "first main" on republic or sith) with the intention of making chapter 2 later. (though probably play just enough to reserve the name)
b) Want to try and grow two independent chapters simultaneously.

Advantage to A is obviously we would have an easier time grouping and doing stuff together. Guild chat would have a higher population and should there be an endgame element we want to try (raiding/organized and serious PVP) it would be easier to try out early when more folks have a maxed toon on the same faction. Disadvantage is somebody or multiple people won't play the class they are most excited about. For example it seems Furiel likes Trooper a good deal, Sir Psyko like Sith Inquisitor a good deal. Somebody is not gonna get what they want.

Advantage to B is that everyone gets the class you want to start, but you do dilute concentrated efforts and players who will be around to help you. "I'd love to help you Furiel but my best guy is sith." This would also delay how soon we could attempt endgame in an all Alvian group (assuming they are 10-20 player deals)

Another thing to consider is that if they implement a guild achievement system that has real benefits, we may be reluctant to divert our interests across two factions in any serious manner. Like I might devote my "Mains" to the Church for endgame and guild stuff, but the off faction one is just to level up a toon to see the story but not care about min/maxing it.

Just some stuff to contemplate.

I worry about guild division with option B.

Bulwark wrote:I worry about guild division with option B.

I also worry about that. I know going in that some of the people registered for this board will not last three months. I assume they will all give it the good college try, but somebody will be like "you know what, this isn't for me". And that is their right and I don't want to guilt anyone into playing a game they don't like/have time for etc etc. So if we assume that we have 25% drop off, that means we go from 29 folks to right around 22 (using the current registered members as a guide). And that means it is a pretty decent game to hold 22 of us. We already know that since we span 4 time zones, and since half of us have kids that our play times will not neatly overlap. Take that and split across two factions, it could start to feel kind of empty. And if there is one thing I've learned over the years, an mmo with no one around kinda sucks. That is why I favor option A.

It would be simpler to have just one faction, but I still think we should have both. With the stories being so class-specific, I don't see large guild activities being much of an issue until endgame, which gives plenty of time to recruit.

I prefer the idea of the Church and Cult of Alvis, though I know I'm in the minority wanting to play Empire. Separate in-game Guild Leadership and a private sub-forum for each, but overall still governed by the Cardinals... Bishops run the separate factions.

And yes, if I do play I'll be rolling a Sith Inquisitor for my main and probably not rolling an alt until it's capped (unless I don't like it). If it has to be with my ST:O Fleet, it's not a problem.

Yeah, just one faction would be the best imo. I honestly don't care what faction we play, there are classes from both sides I would play. If we want to give this game a serious attempt we need to stay together. Perhaps as the game gets closer to launch we can put up a poll and re-vote on our faction.

Yeah we don't need to decide now. Help we don't even need to decide this year. Let's just vote on it Jan or Feb of next year.

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I've been thinking over the last night how we should do the factional vote when it comes time. I have two options:

a) a straight "which faction do you want Alvis to be?" poll with every vote counting equally.

b) a weighted listing of classes you want to play in order of interest. Your top pick would be worth 5 points for that faction second would be 3, third would be 2 and fourth would be 1. So if I said Trooper, Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent in that order I would be contributing 8 points to the Republic faction and 3 points to the Sith faction. It is weighted in that manner to give extra weight to your most desired class and scale down from there on your alts. Note that listing that would not be a commitment to play any of those classes.

Since Bioware has said that they want us to play multiple classes to see more story arcs, I am leaning towards option B but like I said before we don't need to make any decision on that now.

What if i really really really want to play trooper as my first. But only kind of want to play sith inquisitor second. Can I allocate more of my 11 total points to troooper, then 1 or 2 to the others? Or if I want to play BH and trooper equally can I give them both 4?
Or would this lead to factional vote stackng?

The classes across faction essentially mirror each other except in story. The voting based on class is more about the story than the faction. I would be equally happy playing a Sith Warrior as opposed to a Jedi Knight, Imperial Agent to Smuggler, etc. My preference is that we stick together in a single faction but I don't care which faction.

Gandolfini wrote:The classes across faction essentially mirror each other except in story. The voting based on class is more about the story than the faction. I would be equally happy playing a Sith Warrior as opposed to a Jedi Knight, Imperial Agent to Smuggler, etc. My preference is that we stick together in a single faction but I don't care which faction.

Also, if you guys would be interested in it, I'm sure the CoLS guild will be a Sith guild -- so if Alvis went with option A, there's always the ability to have an alt in Bloodbath & Beyond (or whatever they name it in SWtOR.

Forgive my memory but who is cols aka bloodbath & beyond?

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Bulwark wrote:What if i really really really want to play trooper as my first. But only kind of want to play sith inquisitor second. Can I allocate more of my 11 total points to troooper, then 1 or 2 to the others? Or if I want to play BH and trooper equally can I give them both 4?
Or would this lead to factional vote stackng?

Well option b is a rough draft. I basically want people to feel that the faction we pick has plenty of room to do different things. So this isn't so much I super love class one but am blah on everything else so blah. This is more I really like sith faction this much and republic faction that much. So hopefully we can come to some kind of compromise about what faction is the aggregate best fit. My first thought was to have everyone rate all eight classes, but then thought most people in wow rarely have four fully invested already, so best to limit it.

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CoLS - Coalition of Lost Smugglers

Basically, we're the online community formed out of deep hatred of SWG's treatment of Smugglers (the one that allowed us to keep posting without an account). We've been together for what... 6 years now? Maybe it's five.

The guild we have in WoW is Bloodbath and Beyond. We're a mature guild, but a silly guild. If that makes sense.

Veela wrote:CoLS - Coalition of Lost Smugglers

Basically, we're the online community formed out of deep hatred of SWG's treatment of Smugglers (the one that allowed us to keep posting without an account). We've been together for what... 6 years now? Maybe it's five.

The guild we have in WoW is Bloodbath and Beyond. We're a mature guild, but a silly guild. If that makes sense.

Mature but silly?


I have no idea what that is like.

Veela wrote:CoLS - Coalition of Lost Smugglers

Basically, we're the online community formed out of deep hatred of SWG's treatment of Smugglers (the one that allowed us to keep posting without an account). We've been together for what... 6 years now? Maybe it's five.

The guild we have in WoW is Bloodbath and Beyond. We're a mature guild, but a silly guild. If that makes sense.

Since when has anything you said ever made any sense?

When WAR first came out, my guild Casualties of WAR, split in 2 to let people play the class they want. This hurt the guild and drew a huge guild thin. Eventually people started to leave and the lack of guild mate on drove others off. I suggest focusing on 1 faction. If you really want to play the other side, it should be in different guild or solo. This is from my personal experience and my 2 cents.