All...apologies for being offline this week...one of my parents had a medical emergency requiring me to fly home. Will be back online this weekend. Thx for your patience.

Ok..back from overstuffing my face. I'm gonna put up a poll sometime today to get to a decision around our community name. t-darko, thx for going back over the site. i'm planning to take a final look over it today with fresh eyes, so that we'll be ready to officially launch once we get to a decision on a name. i'm also planning to migrate my primary to pot5--not enough ranked action on jc. will roll a secondary as well so i can level with you guys. hope everyone had a great thanksgiving.

(a) I'd say it might be a little longer than usual, but not by much. I recently completed one where I had to respond to 10 essay questions (that was a pain). I think ours is much easier than that, because we're mostly just asking people to select options. What I've found elsewhere is that you want to strike the right balance--it need to be long enough so that people don't just complete it as a whim, but not so long that you lose people in process. Maybe I make the questions on Page 2 (the play time questions) optional. People who are really looking for PvP partners will complete it anyway, and I can pull out those questions into a separate form that members can choose to complete once they're enrolled and have a better understanding of the value of providing schedule info. (b) Server list includes Europe servers. I've gotten dinged on earlier surveys I've published when I didn't include them (they're paying attention, and some actively participate in this forum). Hopefully we'll add some European members to our Associate community.

Let's wait...it'll be easier on potential members if they don't have to setup for one domain then switch to another. Same reason I originally built the website in a test environment. I've got a placeholder DNS for the domain name...once we decide on a guild name, I'll register it and get it out to everyone. The other nice thing is that with the DNS package I have, I can setup domain email aliases for anyone that wants one. So, I could have "dainjamouz@unusualsuspects.com" direct to my personal email account. Need to test it first, once we have our domain registered, but it's another potential benefit we could offer. Enjoy the vacation! Don't let the wife catch you sneaking time on 2XP weekend

Thanks again to all for the great feedback. I had the afternoon off (thank goodness for Thanksgiving PTO!), so I made a complete round of revisions to the site based on your comments. I think it's much improved based on your input. If you have the time, please take a second look. Again, here's the link: https://sites.google.com/site/testsite10301/home Also, please try out the complete Membership Request process, so I can confirm that it works everywhere. For character name, just enter "Test" so I can purge the test entries later. Once we finalize the initial site content and decide on a name for our merry band, I'll deploy the site to its permanent location (it's currently in a test environment) and request a new domain name to point at our site. Then we'll be open for bidness! Thanks again for all of your help!

I've already got the Mumble client installed, so it's an easy choice for me

Actually, this is similar in concept to the event I had planned to run on JC this past weekend (before multiple players told me they'd be doing Galactic Starfighter on PTS instead). I've been trying to figure out an approach to conducting objective-based PvP outside of a WZ. The primary challenge in a hyper-competitive environment like SWTOR is identifying objectives that aren't conducive to interpretation / cheating. Then, when I was treasure hunting in Outlaw's Den a couple of weeks ago, the idea came to me that you could use a GTN terminal as an objective to create a "capture the flag" game. Here's how it works (using Outlaw's Den as an example): (1) Both teams congregate at their respective entrance to the Den. (2) At the event start, the event coordinator announces to both teams the description of an item that has been posted to GTN for purchase. (3) The goal for both teams is to be the first to get to the GTN terminal at the middle of Outlaw's Den, and locate / purchase the identified item. (4) The event stops the moment that the coordinator receives the email purchase message. It's in imperfect solution in that it could potentially be cheated; but, it at least eliminates interpretation. The winning side either has a player near the GTN terminal that can produce the object, or not. Not sure whether this would work for every designated PvP area (do they all have GTN terminals?), but it makes Outlaw's Den an interesting possibility for intra-guild battles.

These names may or may not be in use somewhere, but they are ones that came to mind as I was building out the site: Unusual Suspects Fifth Column Hidden Dragon Your Guild Name Here Fringe Faction IRA (Imperial / Republican Alliance) EDIT (11/25) A couple more lame ideas last night: Warzone Remix Shiny Happy People Also, in a strange, STRANGE Fleet conversation the other night, I suggested the following as a guild name. Probably inappropriate, but totally funny in a Pythonesque kind of way: Sith Panty Raid If nothing jumps out as a "yes, definitely" within the next day or two, I'll create a snap poll to at least narrow the list of candidates.

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. Responses inline below.

Thanks for the awesome feedback! Really appreciate you taking your time to review in detail.

Good feedback, sir! Some thoughts: (a) I'm going to suggest that we want both. I think we launch Pub & Imp guilds on Pot5 under our brand, and invite people to join as full members. In addition, we have a 'partner' status for people who are happy with their own guild and just want to participate with in PvP events or in our PvP league. Or, if they're on other servers and just want to keep tabs on what we're doing. If/when we do expand to other servers, they'll be able to help us lay the groundwork. I can make some changes to structure and content to reflect that both options are available. (b) Absolutely. While I like my current guild, there definitely is an emphasis on Republic-side. It needs to be clear that this is an integrated "guild", and we should have strong leaders on both sides. © I might have overstated our preference against PvE-focused players on the Membership Info page. What I was trying to get across is that we're not looking for participants with a passing interest in PvP--e.g., you'e only doing dailies to farm comms. I'll reword this as well.

All: I've got a first draft of our site up and running, and am interested in your feedback. Head to the following URL: https://sites.google.com/site/testsite10301/home and take a look around. A couple of things to consider while reviewing: + I've used "Unusual Suspects" as a placeholder for whatever we ultimately determine our guild name to be; + Review the structure, organization and features, and provide feedback on things you think are missing or could be improved; + Review the content to see if it gets the right message across about what we're trying to achieve, and let me know if there's anything that concerns you or doesn't make sense. The guild site (and the Fight Club idea) is still in beta, so now is your chance to influence our direction for the better. Thanks in advance!

NOTICE: Due to feedback from a number of potential participants that they'd be playing Galactic Starfighter on the PTS this weekend, we've decided to postpone this event until December. Thanks to everyone who expressed interest--I will direct message you when we decide on a new date.

Also a popular phrase with creationists and climate change deniers. I think you miss the point I'm making, which is that you haven't presented a fact yet. You've ranted, you've drawn parallels, you've presented anecdotes, all of which we're supposed to take at your word as relevant and entirely supportive of your theory that "abusing inexperienced PvPers = better PvP for everyone". So far, it's been a fact free discussion. You have a nice theory; without evidence that's all it is. Forget leaderboards or anything else quantitative; you can't even provide a qualitative "fact". Seriously, how hard is it for you to get someone from your guild (or anyone on BC) to step up and say: "ZooMzy mocked me, cursed at me, belittled me over voice chat, and because of his abuse I'm a better PvP player and a better human being". If you are indeed the remarkable PvPer that you claim to be, such that you have a cult following on BC, this would seem to be an inconsequential request. I would imagine you would have people lining up to volunteer to do this for you. If you'd like, I'll post on the BC forum and create alts on BC just to ask people to stick up for you, since you seem to be uncomfortable making the request yourself. I'm sure it's exciting to envision oneself as the Übermensch, with your Pseudo-Nietzsche new world order saving us all from our false moralism. But you either want change, or you want attention. If you're truly interested in change, one would hope you'd start to realize a different approach is in order. I think it was Einstein who defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results." You can either continue to shake your fist at us, or you can put action to your words. Unlike you, I'm taking action to create change. I believe that people deserve to have the opportunity to develop as PvPers unencumbered by the type of verbal abuse that you hold in such high regard. There are others on SWTOR interested in raising the level of PvP performance AND the level of sportsmanship. If anyone is interested, start following the "Fight Club" thread and contribute to the dialog. Your ideas are welcome. ZooMzy, maybe instead of ranting, you could do something similar? I've strung out this discussion so that anyone with the patience to read would have a complete and unvarnished understanding of what's important to you. If there is truth to your writings, surely it has resonated with someone. Here's your opportunity to recruit. Maybe we can compare notes at some point in the future. Best wishes, -DM

See, TOTALLY agree with you I'll add that this also happens in RWZ. Waited for a solo RWZ pop for half an hour last night, only to be on the three side of a 3v4. Not only, but it was two Snipes and a tank against a balanced team (healer, ghost, tank, ranged dps). Each round was done in less than 20 seconds. After that, I gave up and went back to blowing up pugs in unranked...at least the queue was popping.

Bumpity bump bump!

For more information and registration, click here. Or, just navigate to the JC forum.

Bumpity!

For more information and registration, click here, or naivgate to the JC forum.

^^^ good advice

NOTICE: Due to feedback from a number of potential participants that they'd be playing Galactic Starfighter on the PTS this weekend, we've decided to postpone this event until December. Thanks to everyone who expressed interest--I will direct message you when we decide on a new date. Ok, so here's the general framework for this Saturday's Battle Royale event. Two teams: Pubs & Imps. We're going to try to balance headcount as much as possible, so if it starts to look like we're registering too many of one faction, I may reach out to you to see if you're willing to play an opfor alt. Registration is currently open, and will remain open until we reach 50 players of one faction or the other, or until Friday, 22 Nov at 6pm CT. Registered character names, classes and any group affiliations will be made available to their respective factions by 9pm CT on Friday, so that time is available to coordinate if desired. Teams will start from their respective sides of Outlaw's Den, near their med droid. If one team has more players than the other, the team with more players will have a monitor at their med droid to manage a player queue. When a dead player respawns at the med droid, the next player in the queue will be released into the Outlaw's Den. Both teams will be attempting to accomplish the same objective within the Outlaw's Den (and no, it doesn't involve a Seeker Droid--I wouldn't put you through that). Specific details on the objective to be accomplished will be provided over an event-specific chat channel 5 minutes prior to the event start. This is to limit participant opportunities to gain unfair advantage. However, the basic format is similar to "capture the flag". Registered players will receive the event channel name prior to the event. In addition, channel information will be broadcast over general chat on Tatooine starting at 30 minutes prior to the event. Once an objective is confirmed accomplished by one side or the other, the field will reset and we will start again with a new objective. Within the Outlaw's Den, any and all tactics to accomplish the objective, or to prevent the opposing faction from accomplishing the objective, are acceptable. Groups and Operations Teams are encouraged, as is voice chat to support faction / group / subgroup coordination. Two types of scoring will be tracked. First, there will be a monitor at each med droid to count total kills per faction. Second, total objectives accomplished will be counted. Any questions or suggestions? Post on this thread. Want to participate? Register here.

I can get started on it this weekend. Shouldn't take too long to frame it out so we can start using it.

Excellent point--you don't have to explain anything to anyone. Again, perhaps I am laboring under the incorrect assumption that you have been trying to convince the SWTOR community that your approach (which differs from conventional wisdom) is indeed valid. If you have no interest in convincing others, you are absolutely correct. If indeed you are interested in contradicting conventional wisdom and convincing SWTOR players that your approach of 'toughening up players = good quality PvP" is correct, then it would be useful to have some support for your position. After all, you're battling the CONVENTIONAL WISDOM that we can all be civil to each other in PvP and still produce quality players. I didn't invent the conventional wisdom--it was already here. Seriously, you can't find ONE person that's willing to say "ZooMzy treated me like a total **** in PvP, and I'm an awesome player because of it"? The role of the revolutionary is to challenge conventional wisdom, but revolutionaries without followers become liberal arts professors. I'm not asking you to disprove your negative; I'm asking you to prove your positive. I've never referenced any studies, as I'm sure none of them are directly applicable anyway. It's worthless to toss out research that's going to go down in flames because of lack of relevance. What I have said is that I believe that the CONVENTIONAL WISDOM regarding MMO PvP gaming is that most people are competing to the extent that it is fun, and that the amount of individual tolerance for effortful competition varies. For some people, fun can only be had if they're destroying the competition. For others, fun is not ever-dying in a WZ and picking up a few comms while not being dead (Aside: do I think that there are too many of this type in PvP today? Yes.). My goal is to raise the overall level of competency to the point where everyone can have fun participating at their tolerance level: players who want to destroy the competition have a sufficiently challenging opponent or teammate, and people who want to avoid ever-dying have the knowledge, gear and teammates to do so. It's an inclusive model. Your model is exclusive--i.e., you want to take only the players that are willing to put up with your abuse, and turn them into PvP machines. If they're not willing to put up with your abuse, then they're not worth your time. The hard thing is, it's a type of exclusivity that overlooks players who might be highly tolerant to competition, but intolerant of being called a jack***. What if the guy that walked away from your guild and the game was a genetic aberration of fast twitch muscles, ADHD hyperfocus, and peripheral vision, but he refused to put up with the verbal abuse. You wouldn't know, and you wouldn't care, because your model excludes them. What's interesting is that you can implement your exclusive model in an inclusive environment (like a militia, or a guild), but there's no room for inclusion in your worldview. It's always only "suck it up or leave." Again, you're not fighting with me--I want people to know more about your approach and to make objective decisions. You're really fighting CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, and the lone voice rarely wins. Think about how long it was after Darwin wrote "Origin of Species" before creationism started to lose sway. Dude, I don't want objective evidence. I'm fine with you continuing to regale us with your neo-nietzsche PvP philosophy (feel free to borrow that..it'd be pretty cool for an Imp guild name: the Neo-Nietzshians). I'm working from the assumption that you WANT people to be okay with you verbally abusing them in PvP--otherwise why spend so much time trying to convince us that your behavioral choices are actually good for the game? What I'm saying is that people will only "buy in" to your abuse if they are convinced it will make them a better player. And, players will only buy in to the extent that it provides rewards that exceed their tolerance for effortful competition. If you tell someone that you virtually peeing on their head will improve their overall performance from a 20% win rate in 4v4 to an 80% win rate, they might seriously consider it (hell, I might even give it a try). If you tell that same person you're only going to make them 10% better, they're probably not going to want to have their head peed on, virtually or otherwise. Generally the only way to convince people to buy into a change to their mental paradigm is to provide evidence. Even infomercials understand this, and provide those amazing "before" and "after" pictures. So, don't provide objective evidence. Continue to rant. Some people may be convinced to try your approach. Most will not. If you are truly only interested in ranting, and could not care less about convincing, you'd make a great liberal arts professor. Also, given that you invalidated my examples from sports in our earlier discussions, I'm going to choose to invalidate yours as well. You continue to try to convince us that MMO player abuse makes better PvP, so there should be some demonstrable examples. Maybe immediately below this post, you can get one of your guild members to log in and author a post that states: "ZooMzy treated me like **** in PvP, and I'm now on the (first/second/third/etc.) page of the Ranked leaderboard as a result." EDIT: I'm surprised that in this now incredibly long and verbose meta-analysis of meanness in PvP, no-one has thrown out Bobby Knight as a case study--for or against. What does BK add to the conversation, you ask? From my perspective, it's an IRL example of the power (and limitations) of exclusivity. As long as he was able to find enough talented players willing to "buy into" the abuse, he was able to build strong, silent teams (someone used the word "Omerta" earlier) that could regularly win championships. Once the sports culture shifted, and basketball became a road to individual fame and fortune, the quality of player required to field a national competitor was no longer willing to put up with the abuse and mindgames that BK dished out. His teams started being medicore long before he got railroaded off campus for choking someone. But, we're not talking about sports--sorry for the digression. <END EDIT> Finally, agreement! EDIT: You understand that every SWTOR player feels they have the right to put as much effort into competition as they please, right? After all, they're either paying for the service or getting it for free. There are no extrinsic incentives (e.g., cash, whiter teeth, bigger house, phone calls from the president) motivating people to increase their tolerance for effortful competition. So, all the incentives are intrinsic (e.g., playing swtor is an outlet from my crappy job, playing swtor is a great father/son activity, playing swtor allows me to escape from IRL, playing SWTOR connects me to a body of creative work I admire). And, as differently as people value extrinsic incentives, they value intrinsic incentives even more differently. To someone who has a really crappy job, they may have an intense desire to destroy their competition to compensate, and are potentially willing to put in additional effort and receive greater levels of abuse in return (maybe not the healthiest outlet, but to each his own). To someone else who has a pretty good job, they may have no interest in imagining their boss's face on the opposing tank in 4v4; they just want to be competitive to the extent they have the time. <END EDIT> Seriously, I don't think you're a bad guy. I've been in agreement with things you've posted elsewhere on this forum. I'll go back to a question I asked earlier (which, of course was soundly rejected by you as a "personal attack"): what are you trying to accomplish? If you believe that treating everyone like an a**hat is going to make a better PvP environment, therefore resulting in improvement to your personal quality of life, then fine. But, you don't have to convince me; you have to change the thinking of lots of people. And, most people don't change their thinking just because you tell them that their current thinking is stupid. If your goal is to become a liberal arts professor, then let's continue the existing rant and parry. EDIT: Apologies to any liberal arts professors reading this post, for stereotyping you all as ranting revolutionaries. I'm sure some of you are non-ranting, or non-revolutionary.

I thought it was "attaching a 12v car battery to your balls"?