Alts: Atlantic (24. Ice Tank) : Pious Hunter (40. Decoys & Shields) : Nathaniel (14. Empath) : Lily' (14. Blaster)
I play those four in-character. They'll more likely team with heroes of similar security levels or become a sidekick.
All four are bound to the Dark Covenant SG.
We doing villain-side as well? I'm enjoying CoV more than CoH these days.
Some random thoughts that I have been rolling in my head. Maybe something more indepth later. Friday afternoon blues, I want out of here!
I said I don't want control over this system. I don't. But, on the other hand there must be some commonly accepted rules, even if very broad, and some mechanism to enforce it if necessary.
Ideally the only bnecessary criteria would be "must be roleplaying SG" but realistically it would not work, not by a long shot.
My personal philosophy about roleplaying is that *universally* any way of rp is a good way of rp. Even a complete godmode way of dictating to other people their reactions is equally good to any other form. That's *universally* and each way of rp would fall under the definition of "must be RP SG".
What we want, I dare presume, is no godmoding, for instance. Hence we won't accpet any and all RP SGs regarldless of how they play. We have limitations. No godmoding. What other limits would there be? Who sets them? Who gives that person or persons the right to set the limits?
I'm not looking to create a complex document, a magna carta of inter-SG roleplaying, but I feel some things need to be discussed and agreed on in advance. I would like feedback from others who are interested in this prospect.
This approach is what I call "public". We create something for all, and then just manage it. It's prone to encounter disagreements or trouble at some point. The more and quicker the more flimsily this is prepared.
The other approach would be a far more selfish one. Me starting out a personal project along these lines, inviting RP SGs into a coalition with The Silent Tempest. That eould give me and Tempest a lot of the control over the procedure and may not be wanted by others. You don't, about any of you, know me or can make an assesment if I could be trusted with this sort of thing or not. The only safety valve in this endeavor that I can see is that if the coalition is working and I am seen as an obstruction or just an unwanted person, the rest of the coalition can band together again without me. Any leader has only the power he is allowed to have.
Right, now to get zergling from daycare and then home. I'll pop to forums when I can and IG later in the evening. Any and all thoughts of the coalition thingy is appreciated. A good idea like this should be executed with the dedication and quality that it deserves.
Btw, I'm going to cancel my SWG accounts so it really is full time CoH for me from now on. If someone for some reason is interested in an emotional outburst about a feeling of loss my farewell to my SWG community can be seen at: http://beserat.utu.fi/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2727
I can only say one thing here...
Godmoders should be dangled upside down from a lamppost by assorted body parts and have rotten fruit thrown at them.
Then release the ants!
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Personally, I would have absolutely no trouble with someone like yourself being "in control" of the IC coalition, meaning that if e.g. I were to cause trouble by playing against a generally accepted norm, my character or SG could be "excluded".
The only concern would be not to be overly harsh on new players or players who make mistakes - so some kind of escalation procedure along the lines of (1) friendly advice, (2) reprimande, (3) more dire consequences (ultimately perhaps the one just suggested by FFM as punishment for godmoding 
), might be in order.
Also, I for one would be in favour of a tolerant approach to different RP-styles. I'm not referring to godmoding or power-spamming, but as a couple of examples, I would most probably become guilty of occasionally by habit using a "smiley" in conversation or "going AFK" without OOC-brackets - I would hope that people could live with small things like that without feeling it would ruin their immersion too much.
You might find that having a global chat channel can help a lot with OOC talk. We have the GGOOC channel for this very purpose, though a lot of recent additions to the statue don't seem to use it.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Small slips with smileys and OOC chatter with missing brackets is something that happens. As long as people care enough to make an effort it's cool. Mistakes will definitely happen.
As for someone misbehaving a kind remark at first is the way to go. If the problem persists it would, imho, be ideally a matter for the leade of the SG the person is from. I hope we can find principles for the coalition that people and SGs can agree on. So, no one would abide by the guidelines because they have to. People would want to follow them because they follow them anyway. Because they make sense.
I raised the point of auhtority because if rules are expected to be followed, they must be backed by some authority, whatever it is. It could be some kind of council formed by the leaders of all participating SGs and that might work fine, just needs this and that an agree ways of conversing and making ecisions. Frankly, I can take part in something like that, but creating such a system doesn't appeal.
It boils down to a situation where someone asks "who put you in charge?" and then there should be a clear answer. Someone(s) should know that they can make a decision because others have said that they can make those decisions.
In our SWG community I was a Gamemaster which meant that I made calls on if something was possible or not, when people came to me and asked. The decisions were accepted because upon joining people accepted that there was a GM system and that the GMs were nice, sensible people they could trust. The authority to make decisions would have been removed quite easily if we'd done a bad job - people would have left or made another system. The more personal approach to the coalition would be similar.
So, now itis up to people to decide what kind of system they want. Imposing a system on people who don't want it would be not only rude and inconsiderate (not to mention stupid) but also impractical and doomed to fail.
I'm actually really interested in this whole scheme, unfortunatly I'm not the leader of the Fletched Alliance so can't speak for the rest of us, but I'd imagine that they'd all like the idea, we already have coalition status with a few other RP SG's.
My only concern is that placing one single person in charge over the entire system would lead to favoritism and in certain arguments sides being taken unfairly (this is unavoidably human nature, some one will always give the benefit of the doubt to someone they know rather than someone they don't) so with that in mind I'd rather have a council of the collective SG leaders with major decisions being made in a manner similar to jury service.
Coalitions in CoH/CoV...
any SG can have upto 10 coalitions with other SGs.
also, all coalitions are only 2 way.
example:
SG A has a coalition with SG B and SG C.
this does not automatically mean that B and C have a coalition as well
in other words, up to 11 SGs can form an interlinking coalition if everyone of those SGs form a coalitoin with each of the other 10 SGs.
EDIT: rules...
at GG, there are some unwritten rules.
It boils down to this:
Have fun and allow others to have fun.
This means:
No Godmodding
Keep OOC down to a minimum
If you want to do something that affects an other character, ask their consent
(and probably some other things I can't come up with now, but still, it's a short list)
There are no 'enforcers' other than the community. Yes, there are some that 'encourage' those rules more than others (mostly the more experienced among us).
I think this is the general consencus on how 'offenders' are treated:
Friendly advice, friendly advice, friendly advice, friendly advice, stronger and clearer explinations, stronger and clearer explinations, /ignore
The GGOOC channel was created to move the OOC comments from Local and move them into 'the void'
Since then it's a channel for the banter of RPers in general.
We have members that don't even have CoH, and so can't join us at GG. But they are welcome none the less and it's been used to 'schedual' RP teams/events away from GG.
There are rules, which I'm not going to state here because it's just as much about common sense and respect as the GG rules.
The Moderators of GGOOC are a council of people with varying degrees of experience in both RP and moderatorship.
When any one of the Moderators sees a problem, he or she can (and I would think will) act on it. Minor offences ussually are solved by some words of advice, either through /tells or in the channe. With more serious 'problems' or just issues that wouldn't be so easily adressed the ones involved will be invited into an other Global Channel and then it will be discussed before the board of Moderators.
Luckily, the later hasn't been needed much.
(at any time, questions can be directed at the Mods of GGOOC, they're the ones with the star next to their name in the list)
So, to wrap it up, I would suggest a Global Channel for the Coalition (and perhaps beyond the coalition) so you can keep in touch even across the alts, and maybe a 'MOD' channel for those that become the Mods.
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
Lots of nifty and really important infos about how a coalition works. Thanks for that, appreciated much. ...and now back to staring a proverbial blank sheet of paper and to ponder some more. The somewhat flimsy basic vision I had needs readjusting.
Oh, didn't mention this before but any plan I might propose still needs approval from the rest of The Silent Tempest. I've discussed forming a coalition with the other people and in general no one had objections, but that hardly translates as a blank check to commit the group to any and every idea.
Might not be the silliest plan to play some more and get to know what exactly is out there before delving too deep into obscure plans I can't back up with proven knowledge.
How are other RP SG coalitions working out? I'd like to hear about experiences.
Why not..
1. Invite all the RP'ers interested to a designated channel.
2. Start a mission.
3. Invite the 'hero' to the mission.
Pretty much it. Roleplaying occurs in or out of mission maps, the channel is used for OOC discussion, every other channel is IC. I mean.. guy logs into CoH, asks for team invite OOC, then once on team, slips IC. If the events become more popular, then more teams.
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How are other RP SG coalitions working out? I'd like to hear about experiences.
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The only RP coalitions I'm in are OOC coalitions so we can use eachother's bases (I own 2 (RP) bases, and manage a 3rd (operational) base)
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
Battleflag is doing what i'm talking about... well, sort of.
I have mulled this over and over the last few days and it always comes back to numbers.
The original vision was an arbitratrily large rp sg coalition where the only actual requirement was love for sensical roleplaying. However it can't be any size, at least not by game mechanics.
I'm leaning towards making the IG coalition more an IC venture based on IC contacts (of which there are only a scarce few so far). That means it wouldn't be an open thing for any interested. Instead it would follow IC relations. Seeing how IG coalitions work I'd like to see it come together as a coalition network, interlinked through and through. If this sort of thing interests you, make a contact (or post here).
Another thing that might work is a so-called coalition along the original vision lines, only it would be created with a common channel. However CoH has some limits I am not accustomed to perfectly yet and max 5 channels per person might be a block.
Another somewhat related idea could be an IC channel. It would be explained as a broadcasted channel where all the heroes can chatter and for example ask for assistance. Again the channel limit rises up but I see this venture having wider possibilities for success than yet another OOC channel. Assuming such a thing does not exist yet. Would there be any interest in this? I can execute an idea and keep at it with fervor but only if I see it as a sensible thing to do. Finding out there is an actual need for this would be such an encouragement.
[ QUOTE ]
where the only actual requirement was love for sensical roleplaying.
[/ QUOTE ]
What does that mean? 'Sensical' isn't a word, so I'm assuming this has some specific meaning I haven't grasped. 
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
I'd imagine he meant to say sensible.
But what about SG's who will not, for rp reasons of their own, join this coalition? Are they to be cast out?
I'm sorry, but I see quite a few flaws here, and feel the need to point them out before they become problems.
Are there new SG's to be created for this plan, new toons? As I know a few SG's who would not coalition themselves with 'strangers'. Also, I see a lot of individuals, who don't really have an IC SG, are they to be left out?
Like it or not, this doesn't seem as open an idea as, say, GG is. Just to give you a basic example, myself. I would have no character who would be able to join in this. 50% are in an OOC SG, the others are in an SG, but wouldn't go around blotting things with complete strangers. They have established backgrounds, have been around for ages...
Am I to be left out if I have the desire to join?
Also, what would be the ic justifcation for the coalition, the relationships of the individual characters within the group? You can think mechanics over a million times ooc, but if it doesn't fit ic, it's just waisted time.
Can't we just play it by ear?
Why does it have to be planned/tweaked/altered/scrapped before we've even tried it out?
[ QUOTE ]
Can't we just play it by ear?
Why does it have to be planned/tweaked/altered/scrapped before we've even tried it out?
[/ QUOTE ]
Simple, because I see a closed roleplay group forming. I already pointed out, I do not have a character who could join. I am simply asking some questions, because, frankly, I can imagine people would feel left out. (That isn't to say I necessarily do, but given my characters backgrounds, I can vividly imagine the problems involved.)
So I sling the question back to you; Why do people want to overlook obvious problems? Why can't things be thought out properly beforehand to negate possible problems?
I'm getting really fed up with people being told what they can do or can't do.
I'm starting to wonder why I even bother.
Sorry hun, but I think you're overreacting a bit here. Look at the wider picture. Basically, what you're now saying is; I don't care if there will be people left out, as long as I have my little group of people to play with, and I am going to sit here and ignore those who cannot join and their problems.
That's what it's coming across as, to me.
I can see how some may find it hypocritical for me to be pointing this out, what, with the Vigil and the GoD as IC SG's. But that's just it. I have seen what it can do on the outside. I have realised how miserable people feel when they feel left out of a roleplaying group.
That is exactly why I am pointing this out. Because it was ignored before, and made quite a few people feel pretty bad about it and I want to prevent that from happening again.
I just wanted to make one thing clear - that a least from where I was coming, the intention behind the IC-coalition was certainly not to leave anybody out, but rather the exactly opposite - to create an open IC-environment, where people logging on with a given character and wishing to play missions IC could have an increased chance of finding like-minded other players who happened to be on at the same time.
Unfortunately, I was not aware of the game-mechanics-induced maximum limit for coalitions and can see that this might create problems (just as an example, I have all of my Union toons in different SGs and obviously there would not be room for all of those in an IC-coalition).
From my viewpoint, the whole purpose of the idea should be to enable IC-players to meet. Personally, I would prefer things to be as flexible and informal as possible. For instance, Battleflag's suggestion yesterday of an informal IC-rendezvous each evening in Galaxy would suit me very well, whereas (I think along the lines of what Wonka has said previously) too rigid rules and regulations could constitute a turn-off for some players.
Right, and that, is already in place. It's called GG. It's an IC rendez-vous, every night, at 9 PM, under the Galaxy Girl statue. No coalitions, no restrictions. It's informal, flexible, everything you ask for.
That's what I am trying to say. It is already in place. That is how it started, a group of people using that place as a get together, to discuss missions, troubles and life. It is about the top notch of what the game mechanics allow. And there is nothing stopping anyone, from meeting up there earlier than 9 pm.
But please, do not try and re-invent the egg in a way that limits people, which is how this whole thing is coming across to me. I know it's meant well, and the thoughts are appreciated, but as I said, it's already in place, and a lot more open than what so far, the ideas on this thread suggest.
Believe me. I have been playing this game for over a year, since March last year. Many debates about this subject have been had, but thus far, and again here, we stumble on the matter of seclusion, which is what negated all the other ideas as well in one form or another.
Again, just to make one premise clear, I absolutely agree that the basic for any new concept should be no seclusion or exclusion (with a possible proviso for established "griefers").
As regards GG and the issue of re-inventing the egg, I think there may be a certain difference in purpose between GG and the IC-idea. This may very well be a misunderstanding on my part, but it just seems to me from reading the numerous discussions on the boards that there may sometimes be a difference between "formal" RP'ing and the more "informal" playing a mission IC.
This is going to be hard to explain, but here goes:
I am by no means an experienced RPer and may have got this wrong, but for instance you mention above that to make one of your characters join in the IC-coalition, you would need some (historically established/continuity-based) IC-justification. This is what I mean by the more "formal" approach.
For me, I would have no immersion-problem with just popping along to the meeting point, joining up with a team, and doing whatever mission was chosen. My immersion would be ruined, not so much by lack of established continuity but rather by non-IC team-members complaining about XP or asking "ASL" in tells.
I don't know if this gives any sense, but it is an attempt to illustrate why I feel that GG'ing and IC'ing might be two (slightly) different eggs.
[ QUOTE ]
But what about SG's who will not, for rp reasons of their own, join this coalition? Are they to be cast out?
I'm sorry, but I see quite a few flaws here, and feel the need to point them out before they become problems.
Are there new SG's to be created for this plan, new toons? As I know a few SG's who would not coalition themselves with 'strangers'. Also, I see a lot of individuals, who don't really have an IC SG, are they to be left out?
Like it or not, this doesn't seem as open an idea as, say, GG is.
[/ QUOTE ]
If a coalition is created under IC reasons, if the character you are playing can't fit in because of the concept you choosed for him or her, I don't see where is the problem. Yes, you're left out but it's because of the concept you choosed to play.
If a RP SG, for concept reasons, refuses to associate with complete strangers, this is a concept issue this SG sets itself.
I mean that if you create a loner, a secretive or selective SG, even if it is perfectly good in terms of RP concept, you have just put yourself limits. It wasn't forced upon you, it's your choice.
If you don't belong to a RP SG, for concept reason or not, yes you're left out of the coalition mechanic.
But it's not an issue on the coalition side. It is probably your choice to not be in a SG.
A coalition is not about helping people to meet. It's a game mechanic for Supergroups only.
If you're not in a SG, you're out. Period.
If you created a SG not associating with complete strangers, you're out. Period.
But nowhere I see something else than limits you created yourself.
The coalition doesn't have to be "open" to every character or SG style. I understand it supposes a minimum of character concepts that fit with it.
Not a big news actually. Most of RP SG suppose a minimum of character concept to enter them. So, the same for a coalition. I don't see a problem.
If you decided to have a character or SG whose concept can't fit in, it is your choice.
I respect that choice but don't see an issue there.
[ QUOTE ]
Just to give you a basic example, myself. I would have no character who would be able to join in this. 50% are in an OOC SG, the others are in an SG, but wouldn't go around blotting things with complete strangers. They have established backgrounds, have been around for ages...
Am I to be left out if I have the desire to join?
[/ QUOTE ]
If half your characters are in OOC SG, it's your choice.
If the other half won't associate with strangers, it's also your choice.
Then, why would you even join a coalition anyway ?
[ QUOTE ]
Also, what would be the ic justifcation for the coalition, the relationships of the individual characters within the group? You can think mechanics over a million times ooc, but if it doesn't fit ic, it's just waisted time.
[/ QUOTE ]
I understand the coalition idea from Coile as a supergroups work, not individuals.
His idea may not work at all if there is not enough SG with a similar mindset, theme, concept.
As far as I understand him here, he's just starting, probing to see what can be done.
Associating SGs ? Well, I can perfectly imagine the Fletched Alliance, the Workers of Eastern Europe and the Silent Tempest seeing how close they are in mindset and deciding to pool their forces, IC'ly I mean.
(just a guessing, the various SG members might disagree with me. I don't know that well all the SGs around Galaxy Girl).
----
Now, Coile threw various ideas there. He may clarify later.
Hi Coile,
To be perfectly honest - after your previous IC-posts, I was actually kind of hoping that you would jump to the gun, since I'm a complete mess at arranging things - so for me, it would be really great and highly appreciated if you would take the effort