Meitheamh 2016 |
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Who's ready to get their assassin on? The Dark Brotherhood have left their mark in Tamriel and the DLC is nearly here. Many of our family will be diving head first into this content so if you want to get connected jump on Discord: http://gsch.info/vc/eso and get involved.
As things settle into where we will likely be population wise and our core group solidifies we are looking like we will land in the 100-140 active player range. We are going to be running a small eldership crew in ESO for the foreseeable future. Verve will be moving up into the leadership seat, with Pops and Selrina being his second in command. Seacoral will also be helping out where she can. Prissy will be poking in occasionally but has decided to rejoin us over in GW2.
At this point we are not planning on pushing a major recruitment drive. Were going to ride this out into the sunset and if things begin to change we’re setup to handle it. However since launch we have done everything in our power to turn the tide without much result. We are shifting our focus back to one chapter as no matter how much I think I can run 2, one of them always feels left out. From this day forward we are only going to have 1 Primary Chapter at a time and we will keep the Legacy Chapters alive so long as our Elder Team continues to want to support them. I need to focus my time on one like I did in DAOC, WAR, and RIFT to ensure the best possible result for the community.
Please welcome our newest members to our Elder Scrolls Online family.
» Daidrith [@Daidrith] » FlyB0y99 [@FlyB0y99] » Joker [@JokerxJKRx] » Kerito [@stevennunn] » Luesch [] » TamLin [@als3rd]
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Over the past month the gap between our two guilds in Black Desert grew to the point where it began to break. Situations arose and tempers flared and I was faced with a choice to either let GSCH collapse, leaving a bad taste in the mounts of 70+ members, or jump in and make some changes to get things back on track. Over the month prior, I had been mostly out of Black Desert all together due to some personal reasons, however the family needed me so I'm back.
This 100 person limit will be the death of us if we allow it and thus the first change I made was to pull everyone who wanted to be there back into GSCH on a rotating roster the same style as our guilds in Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online. The person who's been away from game the longest gets rotated out and the person who needs an invite gets in. Then when the person who was removed comes back they become the person needing the invite and get rotated in. This system works. It takes some getting used to but in both GW2 and ESO it saved our community from a similar fate and has worked beautifully.
The communication gap and perception with a split house is just too great for us to pull it off effectively without someone feeling abandoned or slighted. Instead of trying to survive with 2 guilds, I made the call to thrive with 1. I gave the players in the other half of our family the opportunity to rejoin or run Teaglach like they see fit and operate it as a free standing Tuatha member. Either way, Teaglach members are still Gaiscioch and still considered family.
I want to remind people that the social adventure system is NOT a guild. It can be 100 guilds. Each run by their own leader, each focused on doing their own thing. The Social Adventures are about players. Gaiscioch members playing with other Gaiscioch members. The Guild Tag above their head does not matter. We only create the GSCH guild to act as a common launching deck for adventures. If players decide they want more structure or want to explore other opportunities they can. It doesn't change the fact they're still one of us.
So if you see family out in the world and their wearing another tag above their head say hi! Give em a hug! They're still family, their still Gaiscioch. They’re just pursuing other adventures and that is perfectly ok. Think of it like family going to college. Sure they don't live under the same roof but that doesn't mean they're not family.
With the turn of events that began the change of focus, I have resumed control of GSCH for the foreseeable future. Briseadh will still be around and help with maintenance but as I've told her she needs to focus more on fun and getting better. I have also brought Ludoki and Engwar, both long time members of the community into the Organizer role. Izmina has also rejoined GSCH to help with invites and missions as well.
Jace has taken the lead of Teaglach and has solid plans for run it. He can update you all on his plans and the direction our sister guild will be heading. Whether you’re GSCH or Teaglach you are still part of the family. Teaglach is just free to operate as they see fit without supervision of GSCH.
The World of Warcraft Social Adventure has exploded onto the scene this month! After only a few weeks we are up to 36 accounts and over 85 in game characters. In addition to long time Gaiscioch members, we have also added some New Members to the Family. Let’s welcome Blore, Bradford, Filitiarn, Foulblo, Nexmagus and Valeureux!
Over the next couple months we intend to solidify our foundation as [GSCH]. Our efforts are directed towards helping new and returning players get familiarized with the changes that the games has seen recently, and also prepare them for the coming expansion set to launch at the end of August.
We are on the Kirin Tor server, which is linked to Sentinels and Steamwheedle Cartel. If you have a character on any of the three, just sign up on the Social Adventure roster and we’ll look for you in game for an invite.
For the Alliance!
http://www.gaiscioch.com/social/world_of_warcraft/
On June 30th we're going to hold a Taming Madness party where we are going to go tame the strangest creatures we can find. We will then take these odd ball mounts into battle and see what they can do. Come join the shenanigans and get creative. No animal is off limits!
We have opened a Riders of Icarus Social Adventure and depending on the number of people that decide to play we will spawn up more GSCH rooms linked by the RoI Alliance system. Riders of Icarus has a robust Alliance system that will help bridge the grind required to get the guild maximized for player slots. As we manage to unlock more slots we will be consolidating into 1. At entry level guilds allow 20 people. Each guild level gives 10 more slots. I'm not even sure if this will be an issue yet but we have a plan in place in case it is.
What's so interesting about this game? The massive zone bosses. Attack by land or by air to take down these titans. Tame any creature, turn them into pets or mounts. There's even mounted combat. All with a fully voiced cinematic presentation. There's a ton of PvE in this game and some outlets into PvP for those that want to pursue it. The game reminds me a lot of RIFT except with lots of cinematic cutscenes and more giant creatures to face off with.
Learn more on our social adventure page at:
http://gsch.info/g/ridersoficarus
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Be sure to check out our latest stories and gaming news at: gsch.info/mag
Over the past month I have been criticized because of spreading my time between the magazine, the social adventures, and the livestreams. Words were spoken that both hurt and have truth to them. The truth I realized is maybe it's not so transparent what I'm up to.
So let's get honest here. Gaiscioch as a whole, since Storm Legion in RIFT launched has consistently had members pulled away for other games. In GW2 we launched with over 1700 active members. Today we have about 435 active players of which 340 use the website. ESO launched with 1400 active players and now sits closer to 160 using the site regularly. The small guilds sizes are eating our community alive. Just as it did in BDO, Archeage, Aion, GW2, and ESO. This is a huge problem in MMOs today.
Why do we need all these people? Gaiscioch is a Casual Gaming Community. With a 500 person roster we will see 100 at peak times. Most of the time it will be between 30 and 50 people. Spread those people across the level range and you end up with a couple people similar level. This all comes down to you having someone to play with that's your level and plays at the same time you do. We are a global community. 100 people that live in the same timezone would be more active than 100 people that are split across 67 nations. Just because everyone's playtime is different. We need vastly more people to give players the ability to play with others.
With small guild size limits we are forced to take a non-casual friendly approach. We end up having to turn players away that we normally would embrace. Gaiscioch was created as a home for the discarded. The players the other guilds passed up because they didn't play every day. This epidemic threatens the very purpose we were created for. With these limited guid systems we can't with good reason keep players in that are not playing constantly. Which in turn hurts our community, our players, our family.
Now i'm doing everything I can to influence games in the future to embrace larger rosters to allow a home for the casual player. But this is a full fledged epidemic. Aion launched with 70 people rosters, BDO 100 person rosters, Skyforge launched with a 9 person guild roster that you had to grind like hell to increase it each person. Guilds are getting smaller and a casual community just can't find a home in this environment. We either have to change who we are or hang on for dear life hoping that something comes along that we can call home.
The fact of life is that every month about 5-10% of the population leaves for other games. This means we need to bring in 10% more people every month to fill those seats. This hasn't been happening in any of our chapters since we started trying to run 2 chapters concurrently. This realization is why we are going all in on Guild Wars 2 to try to keep this thing alive long enough for us to find a home that we can stretch our legs in.
So why the magazine and livestreams? This is all about building contacts. Contacts get us early access to games that might be a suitable home. The game industry changes constantly. People who work on Angry Birds today work on the next big MMO tomorrow. It's important to have relationships with these developers so that our name is on the forefront of their brain when they start looking for testers. It also gets us in with developers. It puts us on the forefront of the early stages of development which is the ONLY phase where our voice will be can truly be heard. Once a game has hit beta, it's already set in stone. If we're going to change the direction MMO's are going we need to share our perspective before things are in stone. These relationships are critical to our future survival.
For example, thanks to our SOEA Livestream of Echo of Soul we got a larger testing opportunity. Thanks to our Gaiscioch Pioneers testing team performing so awesomely, Aeria Games now has us on the short list to test Bless Online. Bless Online, might be the closest thing to a chapter candidate we've seen in awhile. However in Korea they have a 150 person guild limit. If we get involved early enough we may be able to change this when it arrives in the west. If you remember ArcheAge had a small guild size limit, but after working with Trion we managed to scrub that and have it increased. Even if we can change that It's still a bit too soon to tell but it has separate PvE and RvR that doesn't force PvP on PvErs. There's a few hurdles it still needs to clear but thanks to our relationship forged with Aeria Games we will be there as systems begin making their way west.
These are all puzzle pieces I'm using to get us home. The end game goal of all of this is to find a home that we can all enjoy that will allow our family a chance to stabilize and grow just as we did in the early days of RIFT. This is all about finding Chapter 6. Once we find that home I won't have to devote so much time scouring the horizon searching for hope.
This is not just a Guild to me. Gaiscioch is my passion, its my hobby, it's the way I pay tribute to the memory of my Grandmother, Oldroar, Jexia, Morrigana, and Zurdot. I won't let it die as long as i'm alive. We will endure the hard times and celebrate the good times. Even if we go back to go back to being a handful of oddballs like we did in the early days of Warhammer. Eventually I will find that home, even if I end up having to build it myself, and we will rebuild. In the end all of what I do is to ensure our survival and keep Gaiscioch fun for all.
My door is always open. Join me in discord. Ask questions, just come in to say hi, chat with me. I want to be a part of all of your lives if you let me. I sit in a room at the top of Discord so any of you can drop in say hi, ask a question, or get information as needed. I'm not secluding myself or trying to hide. I'm making myself absolutely available to all of you at any time. I have discord on my phone and respond to private messages at all hours of they day. Feel free to drop in and say hi and let's start building a friendship that lasts a lifetime.
Slan Go Foill!
(Goodbye For Now)
Benjamin "Foghladha" Foley
Ceannard De Gaiscioch Treubh