Ste's first address to the LFoM leaders

Below is my first full post on the LFoM leaders boards. It covered a few subjects but the main ones were to explain the situation of the relationship between the 2 alliances - Which at the time was at an all time low. They blamed us for losing the relics and we blamed them for being arrogant bully boys. The second part of the post was about my ideas on how the alliances could work together and my thoughts on Ardamels ideas for a 'super alliance'.

This was probably the first time that all the major alliances in the realm had gotten together to have civilised talks. Whilst the alliances couldn't be considered the best of buddies at the moment (too much history and certain individuals causing friction (myself included)) we do have open lines of communications and we do help each other out on realm raids etc......

OK, firstly thx for granting me access to your leaders forums.

I haven't had a chance to hold an alliance meeting yet so anything I say here may well change once the GM's of the other guilds get ahold of me.

Before I get into the meat of my ideas I think I ought to give all of you some background info on RS and imparticularly the RS-LFOM alliance relationship as it stands at the moment as im sure most of you know it's a tad strained to say the least.

Until a few weeks before NF RS and LFOM had only really crossed swords once. I won't go into details but basically it was a GOA sanctioned event involving RS and an Albion Guild holding a 'Roleplaying event' in the form of a rescue the hostage type game. A member of one of LFOM alliance's guild stumbled across the event. We explained what was happening and invited him to come and watch. He decided to announce a RR and within 10mins (quite an impressive response if im honest :wink: ) turned up to mash the 2.5fg that were there. Now the fact that the event was ruined wasn't really a big problem, yes it was annoying to see a few weeks work of planning and communications with GOA etc go down the pan, but the events that followed are really what drived a wedge between the 2 alliances.

It would seem several LFOM members decided that RS had set this event up as a RP farming tool. So they all reported us to GOA, even though we had posted GOA's emails to me on our forum and directed them all the URL so that they could see for themselves. When this failed to get me or any of my guild members banned they then decided to report us for foul and abusive language. I admit GOA sent me a email to slap my guild members on the wrist but considering the circumstances wouldn't suspend anyones accounts.

Then to rub salt into the wound it seemed that the LFOM alliance decided that they would then log onto our own forums and start to lecture us on how we should be playing the game. I was even informed that for all future RS events I would have to inform the LFOM alliance.

Anyway that was many moons ago and pretty much all of us had forgotten about it. Fast forward to a week or so before NF launches. I get a pm from Rauthian. The conversation went something along the lines of...

Rauthian - 'Lo. How many BP's does RS have?'
Zartan (my alt) - 'Why?'
Rauthian - 'Because the big guilds are having a meeting and were deciding what keep you will be allowed to claim.'
Zartan - 'were only on 45K atm'
Rauthian 'K, same as XXX (can't remember name of the guild but it was considerably smaller than RS).

Try looking at this conversation from my point of view. Theres 2 points in this conversation that pulled my chain.

1) 'The big guilds are having a meeting'. RS have had the most none /anon players online almost everynight for a least a few months previous to this conversation, we have more than once topped 50 peeps online at once and were averaging the 40 mark. I told myself 'ok, RS ain't the most active RvR guild' maybe they didn't think we would be interested in defending the realm.' So i would try let that comment go.
2) 'were deciding what keep you will be allowed to claim' - Hmmm. Talk about knowing how to pull my chain. The first thoughts going thru my head at that time? 'WTF gives Rauthian and LFOM the right to decide RS's future? Since when did one guild earn the right to decide how another completly seperate guild plays the game? What happens if RS decide to claim a keep that LFOM have decided where not allowed? What gives the LFOM alliance the right to tell my guild that we have to claim XXX keep?'

So basically this conversation told RS 2 things about the LFOM alliance. 1 - they didn't consider us a big guild and not worthy of being included (or even informed that they would take place) in 'realm defence talks' and 2 - they had the arrogance to think that due to their size we would do what they told us when they told us.

As you can see before NF had even been launched the dealings between the 2 alliances were not exactly optimal. Having said that RS was quite happy to let WR and LFOM do the bulk of the realm defence. It's what you guys were geared up to do, you seem to enjoy it and are good at it.

Now lets move onto the week we lost the relics. The first problem RS had was someone announced a CTA in /as. I checked the maps and saw that the Albs owned 1 mid keep. I cancelled the CTA. This is when my guild members and members of the alliance started getting less than complimentary pm's from various members of LFOM. I wasn't in the frontiers at the time but decided that if the other alliances had issued a CTA I would monitor the the BG to keep an eye on the situation.

I /bg join Udobeth (i think it was udobeth) and see ....
Rauthian - ' Whine whine whine, RS wankers haven't issued a CTA whine whine whine'
I /bg quit

Sorry guys but im not going to listen to my guild being slagged off, and im not going to ask my guild members to have to put up with it either.

this continued for the next few days, I would log in. I would be told LFOM are still under CTA, cancel the odd CTA announced in /as, monitor the BG then log out of it as invariably my guild/alliance would get slagged off within the first 10mins of me logging in. Maybe this was just comedy timing and they were the only whines all day and i was just happening to join the BG as they happened? But to me the defence BG's often seemd to spend more time moaning about who wasn't there than organising who was. I really didn't envy the BG leaders during that week.

The night we lost the first relics. I logged on really late as I had been working on the new RS UI and had no idea the albs had made a push for the relics. When I logged on I was informed that my senior officers had issued a CTA and where currently defending the MG. We eventually lost but I know for a fact that RS had the largest number of guild members in the BG at the time we lost them.

For the next few days we were back to normal, RS being slagged off. Me recieving pm's from people telling me how to run my alliance, telling me im a crap leader, insults, threats etc etc water off a ducks back for me tbh. Only once did I get a civilised pm during that entire week from LFOM (and me being a pleb i forget his name). He asked me if i had issued a CTA, I said no. He then told me what was happening i.e. numbers of albs and attacking where and could i let the /as know. I ofc told the alliance and ASKED anyone who wanted to go to join the BG and make their way to Sva.

The morning of the day we lost the relics. It seemed that the albs were pushing for the last relics. The LFOM secret police intensified their efforts in bullying/insulting RS alliance members into issuing a CTA. At one point we had a lvl 20 guy announce 'ARDAMEL HAS ISSUED A REALM CALL TO ARMS. EVERYONE GET TO SVA NOW!!!!!!' How bad do u think you made him feel when all his m8's see his alliance leader publicly been told theres no such thing as a realm CTA and that no-one but the GM's of the alliance guilds can issue a CTA? To start bullying our lowbies was/is something that you guys really should be ashamed of tbh.

During that day everytime a none alliance GM announced a CTA, it was announced in /as that the CTA could only come from a GM and that if they were getting pm'd from outside the alliance they were to be told to tell the guy to pm me directly.

Not once that day, or during the entire week of your CTA, was i contacted directly and asked for help from the RS alliance.

It's ironic that your new DBG/CTA system is almost a carbon copy of the one RS was using during that week. Especially considering all the crap that was (and in some cases still is) being thrown our way. We have since had to modify the CTA rules however. Removing the power to issue CTA's from all but me when im online (and certain individuals when im not). This now means that other alliance GM's don't have the power to issue CTA's anymore. It's not something I wanted and i voted against it, but the other guilds GM's were so sick and tired of having to deal with LFOM members and members of their own guild who were getting abuse and thus passing it onto the GM's that they decided that giving me the final say on the CTA was probably for the best.

AS Phil has mentioned earlier the crap about RS not issuing a CTA for the relic defences is pure BS. RS had issued a CTA well before the 3rd keep had fallen and 3.5fg who were in PoC joined the members already in the defence BG. This made at least 4 fg of RS and at least 1 other FG from RS alliance guilds whom answered the call.

Also heres some interesting facts from that day:

1) Whilst defending at the relic wall I did a /who morderna. 25% of the people there from Realm Defenders and another 25% were from WR. I find this rather amusing tbh as it seems the leader of the anti-RS campaign is a RD member himself.

2) The guild with the largest number of dead members at the relic ruins(temple, whatever it is) was by far and away RS. (Actually that stat sounded better in my head :wink: maybe I should say the largest number of peeps in the ruins at the end were RS members.)

3) The defence BG was being lead by a RS guild member.

Now I know this is all history now and we need to concentrate on the future but I hope this will clear some things up from an RS perspective and give you a better idea of where im coming from with any future statements I come up with.

And despite popular belief I harbour no hatred or dislike of any LFOM guilds (I am a bit annoyed at certain individuals attitude true) and im not out to cause friction between the 2 alliances.
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Ok the issues that are being discussed.

The creation of the Mega FOM alliance. In principle I can see and agree to the logic behind this. FOM have been the lead Realm defence guild for quite a while now and it's understandable that you would want the largest guilds in ur alliance.

I do however have some reservations about how your going about this.

Firstly RS will not get drawn into the discussion on the future of other guilds futures, I don't feel it's RS's place to decide what alliance e.g. Argonauts will join. Thats a decision only they can make. RS will ofc welcome any guilds who can agree with our alliance rules (or lack of from ur guys point of view :wink: ) and are comfortable with a more relaxed attitude to the use of /as as we always have.

Secondly, I think you may want to rethink your wordings on some of this. For a guild thats going to effectivly get the boot from a very large alliance your going to need to be very careful how you approach it.

Ardamels doing a nice job with comments like 'Horn of odin, atreides etc probably don't want to join the FoM alliance and would probably prefer the RS setup'. But then again in his first post he says he wants the 'most important' guilds in his alliance. He then goes on to call the new alliance the 'Mega Alliance'.

Ok these are petty things but pls remember the guilds that your shuffling around contain real people, and such comments ontop of being booted from an alliance they probably spent ages trying to get into won't go down too well. I personally don't care what you call the new alliance, you could call it the 'Ste is a noob' Alliance as far as im concerned but then some people are more touchy than others.

Maybe the MRD (midgard realm defence) alliance or something similar would be a more suitable name? basicaly one that dosn't imply that your new alliance is superior to the one ur refusing entrance to for all the other guilds. Especially if your going to be counting on these guilds for support in any future RR's or relic defences etc.

Can u imagine a situation where you have all the guilds u wanted in LFOM and all the rest that u pissed off joined the RS alliance (who as we all know don't have the best relationship with anyway). Co-operation between the 2 alliances would be be even worse than it is now.

Second point : The linked CTA. Sorry guys but this just won't happen. Not in the forseeable future anyway. I know you have overhauled your CTA system to one that very much looks like the one RS is currently using but im afraid (and this isn't a dig at anyone) recent history shows me that you abuse the CTA far too much. The way I use the CTA is as a very last resort. Using the CTA just once a week is imo abusing it. The more you issue a CTA the more it diminushes the feel of urgency to respond to one.

Having said that both alliances are atm using a form of tiered CTA's. I will be willing to move RS to amber alert when you move to your DBG state. The way our CTA system works is this we have 3 states : green (all is ok), amber (large numbers of albs in the frontier, be prepared to answer a CTA asap if needed, people not doing anything are encouraged to join the odins BG, and a BG/CG is setup to keep the alliance leaders informed), and finally red alert (were under CTA, no raids are to be organised, and everyone who can is asked to join the defence BG).

Should FoM goto your DBG stage then im willing to post in my amotd : REALM STATUS : AMBER ALERT : DEFENCE BG ON XXXX.

All you guys need to do is keep me or my officers informed of the current BG leaders etc.

im sure theres some other points i need to make but i can't remember them atm, i will post them when they come to me.

Before I leave tho I have some questions i would like answered.

1) Ziska posts 'AND a clear chain of command we WILL rule' whats this supposed to mean? that the fom alliance will be the daddys and tell the other alliances what to do? or that only FoM alliance members will be allowed to run the BG's? Either way im not comfortable with this and RS won't agree to these terms.

2) What happens if a guild who joins the RS alliance grows and becomes larger than one of the guilds in your alliance? Are you going to take them into your alliance? If so how you going to make room for them? Are you going to remove guilds from your alliance and then expect us to take them under our wing? I have np with guilds leaving my alliance to join a bigger one btw.

3) Will my high ranking officers (gm's in all but name) and Gm's of the other larger guilds be allowed access to these forums?

4) Is Raithian always this grumpy? :lol:

In summary. Yes im the one who kept cancelling ur CTA's you kept managing to get issued in my alliance. Yes you should hate only me and not the rest of my alliance. No RS will not agree to become a seperate arm of the LFOM alliance. No we won't give the power to issue CTA's in our alliance to anyone outside our alliance. No we wont follow any chain of command you try and impose on us. Yes we agree that creating a defence alliance could work if it's done properly. Yes we agree we need to work together more closely.