Pilot Archive

As a rabid JTL fan, i have always wanted to be apart of a pilot guild. Not just any pilot guild, but one that is active, motivated, and most importantly, is visible to the server. A guild that promotes teamwork, esprit de corp, and prefers its members to use teamspeak. JTL is the only reason i play SWG, and a pilot PA like the one ive described i think is the only one that would manage to keep me from wandering elsewhere.

That said, can such a guild survive? Given the current state of JTL, my gut reaction from past experience ranges somewhere in between *maybe* and *no*.

A long time ago i was in such a pilot PA, infact i was instrumental to its success, (and ultimatly had a part in its demise). Anyway, on bria, this PA, was known as Nord Squadron. Why that name i dunno, i thought it was dumb, but thats the name the people who initial formed the guild wanted. I joined later. Sometime during my 3rd or 4th pilot badge. For awhile the guild was successful, a township became a fullblow city with hospital, clone center, and garage.

Now , i don't know exactly how i managed this but eventualy i was put into charge of all space operations. I guess ingame i have charisma and an air of authority or something, i dunno, but people gravitated to me. Ultimatly i found myself more concerned about the guild then the staff officers were. A problem was creeping into the squadron, and it started at the top.

BOREDOM.


I sensed this when the upper staff decided to form a ground division for hunting jedi. Kinda odd for a Imperial fighter squadron, but hey, i realized that we needed to broaden our horizons. ultimatly you never saw the upper staff . (commander, executive officer, adjuntant or waht was tantimount to a 1st sargeant.) All of them logged in less and less, and i found myself with the ball more and more.

It was boredom and lack of things to do that was the enemy. I sent out constant emails to the guild. In them id lecture (ya i was like a professor heh) anythign ranging from the strategic tactics of the overall space, what sectors were important and why, to how engine YPR works. I made it my goal to teach and inspire them to the best of my ablity.

But always, boredom was the enemy.

Overall the problems i found were thus:
- Post ace content, or lack there of.
- Not everyone wants to PvP, and PvP IS the post ace content. Organizing a practice PvP event with L1 disruptors didnt seem to help any. I only got 1 person to show up.
- Everyone wants to fly a deci, but trying to find uses for them is hard. Events help.
- Participation and time zones. A pilot PA is tyically small, time zone diffrences KILL particpation.
- Mission fixation. People are grinding and want to finish their mission, and tend not to volunteer to help others. Sad but true fact. It go to the point where i had to send an email to remind the guild that we all had, and i quote, " a duty to each other".



Some things that seemed to help:
- PVE deci + escort events. The problem was finding challenging content when that doesnt involve PvP or deepspace.

- Mission helping. This is a biggie. You can't count on a pilot who is NOT master to help others. But one thign that ive found is that Once your ace, newbie content becomes content in itself for you. Having masters go back and helping people make ace did two things.
1.) boosts squadron morale.
2.) Promotes esprit de corp.
3.) gives aces something to do. Although nobody likes storm or escort missions so when these come up, people groan. This was always a problem.

- Flying wingman in PvP.




But it always came back to boredom. Because the reality is, is that eventually most pilots will be tempted to return to the ground for whatever reason. Be it crafting, questing, or just from plain old burnout and needing something different to do.

The problem the Pilot PA has in this regard is once a person stops flying, you have no reserve pool to draw from. Whats more, finding people to join a dedicated flying guild is hard. And when you do find people, MOST OF THE TIME THEY ARE ALTS FROM ANOTHER SERVER. and will not be active for more than a week. Case in point was Nord Squadrons town. A vast majority of the people that "resided" there, you woudlnt see for ages. It was a ghost town. At best nord had around 8 active pilots - scattered though varies time zones and hardly ever flew with each other.


Now all that said, i think a pilot division in an existing ground PA could work, simply on the grounds that you have a reserve pool to draw from. All the normal guildmembers that are groundpounders. A few may "transfer" into your dviision, play pilot for awhile, get board and go back to the ground. BUT, they are still around, and you will probably have more to draw upon if a needed arises. Versues a pilot pA where people just get board, burn out, and fizzle away.


Thats my experience. Whats yours? have you been able to get one to successfully work? I think nord squadron came close, but ultimatly was shot down by the core staff giving up and doing something else. Myself included. In addtion to a total lack of GCW in space had a major role in its demise. What was the final nail in the coffin was My leaving nord. When discent was starting to become vocal in the guild, and it become clear we were abandoned by the people who formed the guild, most of the work was in my lap. Logging into the game became painful and i knew the guild was going downhill for a awhile now. I had been trying to keep it afloat. About that day it occured to me, if the leadership here doesnt care, why should i? Rather then be risk being elected as guild leader, i took the opporutnity when one came, resigned and resigned from the guild. Only then did it became known to me that i was truly the glue that held things together. The most active pilots left shortly after i did. I was the only reason they stayed. Talk about a guilt trip eh?

Message Edited by Ducimus on 07-01-2005 10:41 AM

That's DEEP Ducimus!!!

Well, when I first started flying, there were a group of five of us that used TS and flew everyday. Now that we all mastered, there is only one that I still fly with and keep in touch with. Heck, I haven't seen two of the pilots in over a month. The fifth is doing the ground game...which I am too, but I continue to MAKE time for space. Most of my time is now spent shopping for the parts to make the UBER RE. Once that is done, then I can devote more time to space flight. As a active SW, that too takes away from my time in space.

For those that frequent my shop, I say thank you, but I will probably only be a SW for another four months or so as it seems like a real job sometimes. And what is the fun in that? I've already stopped crafting chassis for the most part as it is a waste of resources and the grinding SWs sell the chassi to low for me to jsutify making any chassis.

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MDaniel wrote:
That's DEEP Ducimus!!!

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Theres alot of work involved when running/managing a guild. Its not something i volunteer for.

I've never been in a JTL oriented guild but I've always wanted to be in one. When JTL came out I was in the same guild I am in now. It was bigger and more active back then. My biggest problem was it was a predominantly imperial guild and I was in Smuggler's Alliance then. So I could help them and others, but I needed freelance or reb pilots to help my once I got to tier 4. So at tier 4 I became a loner basically and had to learn to solo from then on out. I gave up on JTL when I was on the vette mission cuz i didn't think solo'ing the vette was even possible. Long story short...I read Ducimus' guide to the vette and I mastered about a month ago for the first time. ROTW quests drew me back into space and I began having a blast again and now its all I do it seems. I strayed off topic a bit there, but the point of this was although we had a lot of active pilots in the guild, it broke down cuz of the different factions. So when some pilots can't get the help they need or think they need, they get discouraged. At least I did, so I stopped flying. Now I try to help other pilots as much as I can, but now that I'm RSF I can no longer help rebels. I will prolly switch back to SA or try corsec before 2xp ends. Anyways that's my story.

Come on, its about time we discussed something that effects our profession other then the contents of the FAQ , engine YPR or PvP

The Pilot PA: Surviveable or doomed from the start?
What is your take on it?

Message Edited by Ducimus on 07-01-2005 01:19 PM

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Ducimus wrote:

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MDaniel wrote:
That's DEEP Ducimus!!!

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Theres alot of work involved when running/managing a guild. Its not something i volunteer for.

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You speak the truth. I've had similar experiences but the thing with JTLS is this.

It has made the cataclysmically disastorous mistake of being attatched to what mainly is a roleplaying type grinder game.

Don't get me wrong! I love the game...but there is so much to do, so many things people want to do ,and at the moment there is so little content in space that having a fully functional pilot guild doesn't work because there is no attraction other than making your own fun by improving your ships and pvp'ing with friends....that is not content. The best you can achieve is having indpendant pilots working together sometimes to have fun.

I know...because I formed Deviant squadron, a squadron which turned into a 'wing' of three squadrons...out of all of that at anyone time we had about 4 people online. Timezones are a killer.

I know plenty of ace pilots..-proper- ace pilots on Bria who would be excellent as part of a squadron but...

1. They're all in different timezones/different ages so some have school/work etc

2. this is probably the key factor...They're all so good and independant that they always have a different project on the go. Half the time...we don't need a wingman because looking after ourselves in a combat situation works better. At least for me it does. If I'm on my own with my A-wing....I perform way way better than if I have to look after an entire flightgroup. EVEN with Teamspeak being used I find that happening...heh maybe I shouldn't be the Squadron leader, but rather the cocky No.2 with the flyng skills..I dunno. Whenever I've been part of a big grp vs. big grp pvp style 'event', I always opt to fly scout in order to test the enemies resolve and to see how 'jittery' they are.

3. This may be out of context but this would be the ultimate gaming situation for me...

A game..an MMO which was set in space like the old Freelancer game, but all ships were standardised like an X-wing was like every other X-wing, one mans A-wing would handle the same way and be as fast as another persons A-wingetc...like in the Rogue leader games or even better like X-wing alliance. You'd use your droid to repair systems etc and we'd have a limited amount of pilot commands. This would stop complaints about lack of balance in a big way.

You'd be able to customise weapons as far as choosing which ordnance you'd be using and what chaff you'd be able to use and possibly with ships like the Y-wing, choosing whether you wanted a topside mounted Ion cannon, or just another laser for the gunner.

Yep, we'd have our toons so we could walk around etc, but this'd just be for like briefings and/or any roleplay that people would want to do. Maybe even have like troop classes which could go in 1st person shooter style and take over ships [Ok I know this sounds like starwars battlefront II but hang on ]

In fact...it'd be like planetside but Starwars and in space. Any ground locations would be starports and the thing which'd be cool about the game is that you'd know you'd be flying with like minded people because ONLY people who wanted to fly and fight would buy it. There'd be no jedi screaming at you because all they wanted to do was FP farm..in fact..XP wouldn't even exist.

Guilds would be officially named squadrons, when they grow to a certain size they become wings, then battlegroups then fleets etc...

So in short...picture X-wing alliance, with JTLS quality graphics, SWG quality toon animation and social commands and...ok I really gone off on one with this but I just needed to express this dream/hope for a future game

I still love JTLS...seriously, why do you think I'm tearing round the galaxy in my A-wing every day? but...a pilot can dream can't they?

-Leaph

P.S

There'd be no JSF or anything remotely Ep III in this game apart from the odd derelict Trade federation control ship hulk andpossibly a huge Galactic JSF meltdown plant which the Empires ISD's would use as a Turbolaser battery testing range

Message Edited by LeaphChausew on 07-01-2005 01:52 PM

OK...My opinion (and a quick work in progress). For this to work, you would need more than one mega pilot only guild. I think you would have to have two mega pilot guilds, if not three...one for IMPs and one for Rebels. Maybe the third for freelancers (maybe 4 if you split the freelancers along faction affiliation). Why? Well, say you get a mega guild going for one of the factions. Yes, the new mega guild would rule the skys, but other than being able to brag that your mega guild kills any and all opposing faction pilots...how much more fun can there be? 8 against 1 or 2 would get old real fast and would not really allow pilots to better develop their skills. Now if you could get a mega guild for rebels and imps (with "friendly" communication between the two mega guild leaders), this would open the door to pilots creating their very own GCW in space...even if it doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way. The two guilds could "work together" in setting up PvP between the mega guilds and result in mega space battles. Guild battles could be limited to 8 vs 8 in DS to avoid the decay worries. If more than 8 per side show up, then a system of rounds could be implemented...which side wins the most rounds wins the battle.

Let me try an clarify this a little...or confuse you all even further. There would have to be an honor system involved between the guilds. Once a pilot has been killed three times, they are not permitted to rejoin the battle in DS. Last guild standing w/ a living player in DS wins that round. Pilots who could not fit in the first round of 8 v 8 would then enter DS and do battle to see who wins that round (and so on until all pilots have had one round of action). If the two rounds end in a tie, then each guild would select 8 players to enter DS for sudden death. Once you die, you can't enter DS again. Last pilot alive in DS wins the rubber match for their guild and bragging rights for the week. If 8 or less show from each guild, then the amount of deaths per pilot could be raised to about five. Once the same pilot has died 5 times, they cannot re-enter DS and the last guild with a living pilot in DS wins the battle for the week.

But of course, the guilds would be required to police ithemselves and only accept pilots into the guilds that could be trusted not to exploit and to abide by the rules established between the guilds. Above all else, pilots of the mega guilds should be required to show respect to the other guild pilots to keep everyone wanting to keep coming back. Bragging that your guild won the war would be encouraged, but no flaming the other guild pilots. Hey, no motivation better than someone who brags.

I seriously believe that the idea of two mega guilds could work...but the pilots of both guilds would have to work together to make it work. And the leadership of both guilds would have to communicate regularly to keep it going and to keep it entertaining. It would almost be like one big guild divided into two parts. You could have the same name for both guilds to represent the whole of both guilds, and distinguish the two parts by a letter or something to represent the imps and the rebels. (Guild Name-R and Guild Name-I)

Also, all guild pilots should be required to fly pre-rotw ships to keep things interesting and to see which guild can utilyze the benefits of their respective ships to achieve victory. Read into this, NO JSFs!

How's that for a rough sketch? One guild just won't work for very long as boredom will set in. I believe two guilds working together could overcome the boredom. And the time spent between the weekly battles could be used to refine tactics for the next weekly engagement.

>>It has made the cataclysmically disastorous mistake of being attatched to what mainly is a roleplaying type grinder game.

I think ive made similar marks before, but i totally agree with you. RPG'ers are typically not twitch players.

One thing that i was just reminded of, and hinted at in my first post but forgot to say specificly is the issue of recruits. Finding a recruit who is an unguilded JTL player on his primary character is a rare thing. Guilded people.. are more common. Most people are already in well established guilds that do everything ranging from krayt hunts to nightsisters. Comparitlvy, joining a pilot PA is giving up quite a bit of content.

I think the best you could hope for is a pilot division in a large guild and an allaince of similar divisions in other guilds. Still though, id love to find a way to make a pilot PA function so it would last. Id much rather be in a numbered fighter squadron for some odd reason. Currently though, i think any pilot PA will be short lived. Now if we get a real GCW in space...... that makes me wonder.

Then, if they ever give us a real GCW in space, we would already have a base for the factions and the transition would be smooth.

Grab all the freefloating space junkes regardless of faction under one roof?

Nobel idea. Would be able to better faciltiate more friendy PvP matches, but in my opinionated opinion the driving force behind PvP, is acutally FP.

(you knew this was coming )

Think about it. Your either.
A.) grinding FP.
or
b.) Hunting FP grinders.

Encounter
C.) hunting the hunters.

Is not common.

So factional rhetoric would prove to be an obstruction. Its at the core of why we gain faction points which is the driving force behind PvP. If you could gain FP, and not be overt, PvP in space would be dead that instant.

On top of that you have mission conflicts. In Nord for example orginally it was imperial pilot ONLY. I instigated a policy change to allow RSF, and only RSF to the roster. That way it provided more content but also provided no factional conflicts.

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LeaphChausew wrote:

In fact, are any of you guys RebelSquadrons people?

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I am. (Assuming you are referring to *the* Rebel Squadrons at www.rebelsquadrons.org) You are...?

At least you HAVE zealous JTL activity on your servers. In Eclipse, it seems, everyone, including I, have landed in order to hurridly grind ground templates with double XP. No way our recent Paddies would go to space when they could safely grind Jedi on Kashyyk. I don't even think Eclipse has a single functional space PA. In fact, I could farm FP above Yavin for hours without finding a single enemy overt. I can only hope my ground grinding will pay off with the capital boarding expansion.....if that ever happens. If Eclipse ever had a space guild, I would definately participate with them.