Being in Guilds on Other Servers

When I first started playing on other servers for Galactic Seasons, it was purely a solo project. However, as my characters there started to make progress through their class stories and I became more attached to them, I also developed an increasing urge to be part of a guild with them, to be social with other people, and to have some sense of belonging while playing on those other servers too.

Season 6 has been the first season for which I was guilded on at least my main character on every single server, and it's been... an interesting experience. I've certainly developed more sympathy for people who struggle to find a good guild. For me, it's always kind of happened automatically, because when I'm really into an MMO I play a lot, and when you play a lot you run into familiar faces after a while, and when you spend a lot of time around the same people, you learn who you like and who you don't like being around kind of automatically. However, when you're playing more casually, like I am on these secondary servers, it can be much harder to get a good picture of which guilds offer the kind of experience you're looking for. Fortunately I seem to be at least mostly there after this season.

On Shae Vizla, I am of course still a member of Heroes of the Republic/Empire, which I joined at the server's launch. It has a bunch of nice people in it, and when the server launched, it was the biggest guild in town for a while, which allowed me to get the Galaxy Conqueror achievement without even trying, which certainly felt kind of ironic when that's one I'm still missing on Darth Malgus after more than a decade. One day you'll be mine, Belsavis! Ahem.

Anyway, things have kind of calmed down a lot since then, but I don't mind - it means I have to be less concerned about logging into all my alts to keep them active and avoid removal from the guild.

On Star Forge, I joined Intisar's little guild at the end of GS4. I had a pretty good time with them in GS5 (which was part of what inspired me to seek out guilds on more servers, because even with only casual involvement on my part it just made the whole experience much nicer). During Season 6 I didn't have as many chances to play with them (their events usually start at 1 a.m. my time and that's just not doable for me most of the time), however I still felt included and welcome on the Discord. I also got to join for some action with "Team Disco" on Swtorista's streams a few more times, since she streams at what's mid-morning in her time zone, which translates into mid-afternoon for me, which in turn means that I can actually stop by sometimes and backfill if I'm working from home and my workload allows it.

On Satele Shan, I joined Ootini Knights/Rage at the start of this season, and felt warmly welcomed there too, though I was a bit surprised by how quiet it was on their Discord. I didn't really expect to run into people a lot in-game due to my time zone issues, but I didn't see much activity on the Discord either, such as organised events or anything at all. I just figured a guild connected to a long-running podcast would have a bit more going on. As it is, it feels more like a place where a lot of people park their alts while primarily playing somewhere else... which is exactly what I'm doing myself, mind you, so no shade from me!

Loyal readers may remember that on Tulak Hord, I helped someone form a guild the first time I reached the fleet, and then just kind of stayed in that guild even as it went nowhere. Ultimately it just had me and one other guy left in it, but I didn't mind. During GS5 I even made it a bit of a personal goal for myself to use the guild ship that the other guy had purchased to invade small yield planets and then achieve the guild target by myself. I initially thought that I would just do the same again in GS6, but the nerfing of the reputation objective, as well as my inability to get alts into the guild due to the other guy never being around, made it hard to be efficient and I got a little frustrated after a while. In the end I left a friendly farewell in the guild message of the day and decided to try and find myself a new home where I could reap some guild Conquest rewards without having to do all the work by myself.

I already had a new guild in mind as well. I'd seen their recruitment message and liked it, their guild name sounded cute, and I'd actually run a master mode flashpoint with two of their members that had gone very well. It seemed like a good fit! So I got myself invited, looked for their Discord link... and found that they didn't have one. Instead they were old-school and used TeamSpeak for voice and listed a guild website in the guild description.

I was surprised, but didn't actually mind too much as my own guild on Darth Malgus also still uses TS for voice chat, and I was curious to see what a guild website would look like in the year 2024. I signed up and created a profile - but unfortunately the site turned out to be pretty empty. No event sign-ups or anything, and on the forums there was just an old message from someone complaining that they'd created events that nobody signed up for, and that they weren't going to bother anymore. Undeterred, I wrote a post to ask how one would go about finding out what's happening in this guild. More than a week later (!) I got a reply that said that people don't really look at the guild website, and to just be on TS in the evenings or speak up in guild chat. I've got to admit, that's a bit too old-school even for me, especially when I'm not planning to commit to playing a whole lot on this server. It was honestly kind of disappointing, because how am I supposed to make any kind of connection to people when I don't have opportunities to talk to them? I'm staying for now but we'll see where both I and the guild are at when the next season starts I guess.

Finally, on Leviathan I joined Republic/Imperial Court at the end of last season, the guild that I'd seen advertise on Shae Vizla as offering a home specifically for players doing Conquest and Galactic Seasons across all servers. That was a slightly odd experience in a different way. They do have a Discord, and when I joined it I found out that this whole "guild conglomerate" was owned by the same people who lead Wardens of the Old Republic on Darth Malgus, a guild that used to dominate the planetary leaderboards once upon a time but whose activity fell off at some point for reasons unknown to me. As it turns out, they're still alive and kicking on Darth Malgus, just on a slightly smaller scale, and active as "Courts" on the other servers.

I had hoped to maybe find some organised events for group seasons objectives on Leviathan on the Discord, but it turned out that while they do have guilds on all servers, the main focus in terms of activity is on Darth Malgus and Shae Vizla, with none of the others getting regular events, just impromptu pings when someone does something like put a world boss group together (which I usually don't see in time). I also muted the general chat on Discord at some point because it made me feel like I really didn't fit in there. Remember when I expressed confusion about people freaking out and rage-quitting on the second boss in False Emperor for example? Well, the same week I wrote that, one of the officers in Courts ranted about stupid pugs and how they (the officer, not the pugs) hate it when people use the turrets on that boss and how that always makes them quit the group. Awkwarrrd.

Anyway, I guess on Leviathan my options for socialisation were always going to be limited with me not really speaking French and only a small number of English-speaking players on the server. It does feel like everyone who's there for seasons is indeed in Courts, as the guilds on both factions always go for the large yield target from what I've seen and achieve it easily. There are clearly a lot of people logging in every week to get their Conquest and seasons objectives done, just not necessarily with any interest in socialising while doing so. I guess you can't win them all, but I appreciate that they freely invite anyone who wants to be there with no questions asked, and that the guild has made it possible for me to earn guild Conquest rewards on all my alts on the server. I just didn't think it was possible to be a member of such a big guild and still feel so lonely in the crowd.

I will say that this whole adventure has once again made me more appreciative of what an absolutely genius gameplay system Conquest is. I mostly write about it in the context of my guild getting into crazy competitions during Total Galactic War nowadays, but it's really rewarding from a casual point of view as well, making it very worthwhile to be a member of a guild even if you don't talk to anyone. And from a leadership perspective, Conquest points give a better indication of activity levels than mere logins. I guess most guilds don't regularly check on their members' contributions, but I know that I take note of who's usually getting their personal Conquest done and who isn't, and by doing my part in the guilds I'm in on those other servers, I can show at least a "sign of life" and make a small contribution even when I'm not able to be online at prime time to socialise.