Nine Swords

Hello everyone I'm Subira. I just recently put in a application to join your team. In my application i forgot I just left the last legion due to lack of things to do for ppl who are not at the end game as of yet. I'm looking forward to meeting with you.

Hello Subira, its nice to meet you

Hi all -

I initially registered to contact a leader privately, but seemed perhaps this thread could be a combination of an introduction and a place to ask some questions. I apologize in advance.. wall of text incoming I am considering applying, but wanted to know a bit more about raiding.. and I will shamelessly copy and paste some of this into an application if it goes that far

A Bit About Me

• I have never missed a raid unless planned (vacations, theatre tickets, etc).
• I do all necessary preparation to participate in raids, from research to farming.
• I am easy-going, think raging is a waste of energy, and don’t mind wiping, but I do take a serious approach to always improving my own performance with each attempt.
• I love participating on the forums, particularly in strategy discussions.
• I have a lot of leadership experience and always ended up in the OCD organizer role (not something I am looking for now), so I very much appreciate and enjoy the type of effort that has gone into this guild.
• I like to have fun and enjoy the people I play with, while feeling we are working together in sort of a virtual team sport.
• Personally, I’m a software developer who is trying not to be. The love of my life (don’t tell the husband) is my 14 year-old Australian Shepherd. I love to cook and have recently started weight-lifting to lose some weight.

On 9 Swords

So you seem to cover most of what I am looking for on your web site: strong organization, heavy forum use, respect for time, and a fun, friendly, mature adult environment.

What I am a bit unsure and have questions about is the approach to raiding. I have a ton of questions, but most can wait for an app/interview. There were just a few things that I either missed (most likely ) or aren’t public that I wanted to know before applying:

1. What times and days will you be raiding for your US raiders (or are you)? How many nights a week and what attendance expectations will you have?
2. Are you planning to do 10 or 20-man raids?
3. How do you approach your raids? Are you as organized with that as with the rest of your site for both the EU and US teams?

Some Gaming History and Background

My husband would be applying together. We stand on our own individual performance and merits, but gaming is our primary form of entertainment together, so we specifically want to raid together. Not that one or either of us ever minds sitting out, but we don’t want to regularly spend our time playing separately. While we each have different strengths and weaknesses, we are not one of those couples where one is ‘carrying’ the other.

For a bit of background, we have been playing MMOs for 12 years, and while we have played almost every major MMO released in that time for a month or two, we only dedicated ourselves to two. First, Asheron’s Call (I noted other ex-AC folks in this thread) for 4 years and then WoW for 6½ years. In Asheron’s Call we did a lot of organizing for guild events (there was really no raiding in that game, just a few ‘world boss’ type encounters). In WoW we ranged from hardcore to semi-hardcore raiding and were part of a 4 person council that created and led a 3 night a week 25-man raiding guild that usually averaged US top 200 (irrelevant for TSW, but just a frame of reference for anyone reading this coming from WoW). After being disappointed in the Cataclysm release, we quit WoW in May of 2011.

After almost 6 months of playing TSW (including CB), we are absolutely convinced this is our new long-term game. Once the game went live, we found a group of 3 others via pugging, started working together while still in greens, and have 18/30 in NMs without reading any strats or watching any videos. We did this intentionally, as we thought it would be fun to approach the TSW bosses differently than we did in WoW where we researched for days and watched tons of videos before developing a strat for/with our guild.

Since we have this group, we are being careful in our search for a guild. We don’t want just an ‘okay’ guild.. we want a long term home. We no longer want to maintain a hardcore raid schedule, preferring a guild that raids 2 nights a week, possibly 3 for the perfect fit and depending on the vision. That being said, we do want to be keeping up with progression, not part of a secondary team. We have a lot of other things going on in our lives, which is why we absolutely want a guild that emphasizes planning and scheduling, as well as effective use of raid time. As adults who have control of our time, we want to play with others who have the same, allowing us all to feel like we’re putting in the same amount of effort while working together to achieve common goals.

My husband and I like this analogy and use it alot, so I apologize if we app and he uses it on his app too as we do not read one another’s apps:

We treat raiding like softball. Some teams play softball casually, get crazy drunk and mess around, not caring who wins or loses. Other softball teams treat the game like professional baseball, taking the game so seriously it’s like a job. Then there is the softball team that comes to the game ready to play hard, but recognizes each member as a good teammate who deserves respect, and everyone gets drunk together after the game, win or lose. That’s the team we want to be on.

All that being said.. more than anything, we want to enjoy the company of the people we are playing with !

Anyway, well met all.. and if you made it this far.. I’m impressed

Cheers,

Emma

Hey Emma!

Using the softball analogy I'd say we're pretty serious, we do our homework and take our time making sure everyone know the game plan before rushing in to play ball. On the other hand after the game we get stupid drunk and cut up.

As good deal of your questions are really meant for Silmeria. I can however give you an account from my POV. As for any 10 or 20 man raids that might come up we are aiming to take them on. Our members that are on Nightmares are helping others still on Epics and Normals gear up and educate them on all the dirty tricks that the bosses have. We are a diverse group, as for NA players we have about 15-25 people, and this adverage also stands for almost all hours. The likely hood of finding a group within the cabal are very good. If you guys have an interest in doing other things in game like PVP, RP, or just kicking back and chatting while farming we do that too.

9S is also home to several spouse teams. (last time I checked 20% of our members are couples) We understand very well the pull RL may have at times.

Oh great, thank you

Kotts wrote: If you guys have an interest in doing other things in game like PVP, RP, or just kicking back and chatting while farming we do that too.

Oops.. the raiding questions were on my mind, so I didn't mean to come across that we are interested in only that.. we absolutely love every aspect of this game, so this is good to hear

It all good pve is meat and potatoes to a lot of people
Raiding and loot can also cause some epic drama so checking on that first makes to a of sense.
For more members statistics... It's very rare that someone with no leadership experience applies. Not that no experience is a bad thing, but just saying our member base earned our stripes and scars well before TSW

Hi everyone! *waves*

<---- Emma's hubby, aka the one who doesn't hit you with a wall of text

Damn forums putting my info in an odd place!

Emma's hubby, now with a proper arrow ----->

Lol!
Heya Josh

Additionaly, I'm bored at work (for another 30 minutes) now so if you have questions fire away!