Problems, issues and questions

I, as is possibly apparent, am having some issues with TOR and I don’t think I’m the only one. So I intend to list here some of the questions that I’ve been asking myself about TOR and see what, if any, responses you have.

Of course, if no one has any response, that’s a pretty damning indictment. Ask any politician – love or hate is fine, that’s an emotional response that is committed and which can be responded to. Apathy is the worse as it’s almost impossible to combat effectively.

Right then – what are the problems?

1. Grouping: We’re not grouping up much for planets or flashpoints. We’ve made efforts down this route with a number of tactics, but they’ve waned. Was it the wrong tactic? Or does it need pushing again? We have people at 50 who have barely touched many of the flashpoints.

2. Social hub: Perhaps it’s the lack of a social hub. Do we nominate a Watchers cantina? Should we run another social evening? I’m not sure about these without a real purpose, I’ll be honest. But perhaps we can combine it with a RP night? Mix it with the Aartan legacy story.

3. Other games: There’s a lot of excellent releases out there at the moment. These are bound to distract, and have had similar effects on other guilds on the server.

4.  Release 1.2: Perhaps the community will start buzzing again once there is more to do. Once some of the crafting frustrations are fixed. Once we can make the UI work as we want.

5. Nature of MMOs: I think that to a certain extent MMOs now encourage a fluid community, moving among several games as new releases and patches pull us onwards.

6.  Leadership: Yeah, me. Tell me where I’m missing something or failing. And yes, I should be 50 by now. Particularly with the way that experience is handed out. However I’m not in any huge rush to hit 50 as I can’t join the raid team – the times and days don’t work for me - and I absolutely trust the people who are already in the raid team to deliver the best experience for all out there. But tell me otherwise. I consider my strengths are in community. And perhaps that’s why I’m worrying about this stuff, and no one else is?

7. Fluidity of community: We’re a relatively small community, and we have broad experience that moves us among various games; we don’t stay where we don’t want to be, and for some, TOR just hasn’t delivered. We could go in for aggressive recruitment to bring the numbers up? Appoint a new recruitment officer; and if so, who’s interested? One of the issues here is that we’re not particularly PuGgy as a community. Mel is, and has done a great job of bringing people in to the Watchers who are Watcherish by nature. What’s most important to you – a Watchers’ spirit or a bulk of numbers?

8. Is it the game itself? Has it not met people’s expectations? Were our expectations too high as it was?

9. Anything else?

Not a problem but something on which I’m also musing:

1.         Operations: Raiding is going really well, but what do we need to do so that it progresses? So that people don’t feel frustrated or blocked by a certain boss? Ilum daily nights so you can grind the necessary items and social points?

And there’s also the Legion – we’ve made efforts here but it’s not sparked. Possibly partly because of the numbers of people here and the various points above. It’s faded to an alts guild, which reflects the reality of the polls we did before launch, but remains a great shame for people who have invested their time and effort in characters there. And also we have some great members of the community who we’re missing out on. However, it seems that there are moves to have cross-faction chat – can’t be soon enough as far as I’m concerned. I see hope on the horizon here.

So over to you…