Pilot Archive

I'd take myself 2 weeks (lets say the saturday) and set a time and date
Then decide on everything you want a space battle to consist of (including rules but be careful here not to introduce too many) and invite pilots you know of to it (send out mails to all of them but tells encourage people moreto come to the event... so do both). Make sure to add all of them to your friendlist so you can easily mail them updates, tips on how to equip ships (overloads!) and whatever.
Try to find a pilot from the other faction who is good in organising and coordinating to lead the opposing force. You both do advertising for both factions then, always directing them to the fleet commander of the corresponding faction. You win nothing on the long terms if one side dramatically outguns the other so forget about rivaltry between factions. Do advertising on the galaxy forums and keep it bumped.
Make sure the battles are organised for fun. Griefing should not be allowed and the atmosphere between and insidethe factions should be friendly and only on second place (a bit) competative.

Kitten

Kitten's got some good advice there. Keeping your rivalry the friendly kind, or at least separate from interfering with your desire for some fun fights, keeps peoples' focus on having fun and exploding each other, not on the questionable/unfair/exasperating things the other side is doing.

Also, from my observation of how people have done it on Starsider, communication really seems to be the key. Get a couple known pilot chat channels set up, assemble mailing lists of interested pilots, advertise on your galaxy forum, tell pilots you know to spread the word. Getting good PVP going requires a critical mass of players, I think--once they're there and have been in a big dogfight or two, a lot of them will be hooked--and getting that critical mass requires a ton of communication and keeping everyone informed.

I know not everyone's interested in or able to attend organized events, but they don't have to have rules beyond "Everyone show up at X:XX PM, then we fight." And once you have that, spontaneous PVP starts to pick up, too, as rivalries flare up, pilots start hitting Deep Space more for loot, etc.

Good luck with this. Once you've got it, it's a ton of fun.

This is good stuff, can we get a sticky, Tomo?

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Piatchi wrote:

In defense of this thread, it's not trolling or anything, and that's great. All I was saying is that it isnt near good enough to warrant a sticky.

This thread reminds me a lot of the question: "How would I make friends?"

1) Be nice to the stranger

2) Perhaps give the stranger something

3) Keep in closetouchwith the stranger

Sticky please, I now uncovered the secret to making friends!

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LMAO! You rock man! Hahahahahaha!

1. Start posting in your galaxies forum inquiring to see who would be interested and who would be willing to help rally opposing faction pilots.


2. Begin by cretaing 3 public chat channels and advertising those on your galaxies forums and in-game. Make the neamse of the channels "unique" so people can tell them apart, one for each faction at least.


3. Set specific times and days of the week when pilots can rally. For example M,W,F at 8-10pm eastern. (I suggest multiple times so that European pilots can get involved too)


4. Whenever you are given an oppurtunity to help someone, take it! Let people know who you are and that you are willing and able to help out. (This can become daunting, I recieve anywhere from 5-20 tells a night asking for help completeing missions. Just be sure, if you're busy doing something else to reply politely and say you're busy)


5. Start throwing little player events to help get things jump started. I had some good success with my "Capture the Imperial Commander" event, and have plans on some additional events coming soon.


6. Don't let the subject drop off the first page of your galaxies forum, if possible, see if you can get it stickied.


7. Foster relations with opposing faction pilots. Get to know your regular opponents, there's more of a gruding respect between pilots than there is on the groundgame. Think of it in terms of World War 1. Even the british pilots thought the red Baron was the greatest.


8. Above all else try to provide fun, fair, and enjoyable PvP experiences for all the pilots. As an Imp I want to see the Imp's win, but there's many a time I've allowed myself to get blown away just to keep the Rebels coming.

See, the thing to remember is, if we want pilots in the air, they need to enjoy themselves. It needs to be completely different than ground PvP. Never send someone a tell like "I Pwned Jo0!" or "Man you suck!". Encourage the other pilots even if they are your enemy.

I know that if I kill every Rebel within 5 seconds of going overt, they probably will not go overt agaian. On the other hand if they have a good experience with PvP'ing against me, then they are much more likely to seek me out for encounters. In space, it shouldn't be about "who's the best" it's about "whats best for the JTL PvP community".

If one side is constantly winning and "owning" the new pilots then we all suffer. If Rebels don't go overt, Imps have no one to fight. Don't bother with setting up pilot guilds and such, individuals will do that on their own. What you're trying to accomplish is giving those squadrons/guilds something to do, somewhere to go, and something to fight for.

A word of warning. This is no small project. If you're going to do this be prepared for huge amounts of email, long discussions in tells, and much more time organizing and planning events. You need to be consistant and available. People will be constantly asking questions and looking for help. Ignore any and all drama, let the individuals deal with that themselves. Don't stress if someone gets mad at you, you can't please all the people all the time.

I'm trying to do this exact thing on Ahazi. The part thats hard for me is RL takes priority. I'm in the middle of planning my wedding in sept, switching to a new job, and being sure that I never ignore my GF for some game. But realize, many people will volunteer to help along the way. Your job is to get the ball rolling. Once it becomes popular it gains a life all on it's own.

Hope that helps a little bit. I'm frustrated with the low amounts of PvP on my server as well so I know what you mean. Though I'd love to fly against the Starsider pilots I really have no time to grind another character from scratch. So if I can't go to Starsider, my plan is to use them as an example to get JTL popular on my server.

/bowrespectfully

*** Would someone mind posting exactly how to create public chat channels in this thread? ***

I'm trying to remember off the top of my head but.. well.. y'know how it is.

Recompiled and reposted in a thread titled:

"How to help promote the Pilot Community on your Server!"

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=pilot&message.id=68387

Maybe that will help the other servers having a hardtime getting more pilots in the air.

/bowrespectfully

(Original Poster thanks for bringing this up! )