New Conglomerate Alliance Emerald

New Conglomerate Alliance Emerald

“To Regain the Initiative”

THIS MESSAGE IS ADDRESSED TO ALL NEW CONGLOMERATE OUTFITS AND PLAYERS ON THE EMERALD SERVER:

My friends,

We face a grim situation.

The VS armies are on the rise. They have taken the advantage in both numbers and organization. Our forces are scattered and the TR are unwilling to stand with us against a common enemy.

The time has come for a new approach.

Today marks the formation of the New Conglomerate Alliance Emerald – as an extension of the alliance formerly active on other servers.

All available NC outfit leaders are requested to respond to this message. Efforts are underway to reorganize our scattered forces into a united front. Everyone will have a part to play and this is only the first step.

Turning the tide on Emerald Server will require everyone to contribute. Whatever doubts you may have about being able to work together must be set aside. Right now, our backs are against the wall and there are no other options. We will unite or we will remain doomed to suffer endless defeat.

To be clear: this is NOT a merger. This is a coalition designed to allow for coordination with the various NC outfits on Emerald and nothing more. The NCAE has only 3 goals:

1. Create a forum for NC outfit cooperation
2. Improve organization both in outfits and among outfits
3. Turn the tide on Emerald and defeat the VS surge

All NC outfit leaders should report in. If you are part of an outfit, please notify your CO to reply to this thread.

Any NC players without an outfit should also report in. Your support is needed too.
Anyone else who is otherwise frustrated with the VS predominance on Emerald is encouraged to report in.

DISCLAIMERS
To people on board with the NC / TR Truce: This movement is intended to compliment that effort by allowing for better NC organization.

To players from other factions: Take your criticism elsewhere. This isn’t about you.

To the trolls – no matter the faction: You aren’t welcome here and you will be ignored.

Today our faction begins to regain the initiative. Let's get to work.

Is that shield in the background from the Halo difficulty setting thingy?

Oh and good luck.

You guys got warpgated on Amerish during primetime hours.

Ouch.

Now this is what we like to see. Good luck to you my fellow NC brothers and sisters of Emerald #freedom #sluglyfe

Honestly one bit of advice I will give that will never happen - you guys need to:

1) Stop with the ******* 'silly' platoons. I quit playing Waterson NC because there were pretty much zero platoons that didn't just want to **** around and do stupid ****. PXP for example, only has one 'serious' night a week.

2) Stop with the specialized outfits. PREY is a worthless burden, nobody needs an 'air force' outfit. You also have a tank outfit too. Again, useless. Reavers and Vanguards don't win bases, as you guys should've discovered tonight when you threw literally hundreds of aircraft and armor at Cryobank and Barrick Electrical.

Noted.

Good luck.

Also protip: use command chat rather than external coms for actual in game inter outfit coordination.

Appreciate the advice.

Plans are in the works to utilize both external and internal comms for this, since the in-game command chat has its usual share of trolls or DJs that don't serve any real purpose other than posing an annoyance.

TS3 also offers better call quality than the in-game comms.

What ever happened to the old Emerald NC forums...

This one:
http://ncheadquarters.com/

This won't go anywhere. It never does.

Call me a pessimist but until I see evidence to the contrary there's n o reason for me to believe this will be any different.

Okay ...

You're a pessimist.

The only way this won't go anywhere is if everyone shares your attitude. If you want evidence to the contrary - stick around.

As a main VS player. I look forward to it!
I often lament the fact that the other factions on emerald do not have nearly the same amount of coordination as us, as it provides us with bland fights, and boring ghost caps when you grow weary of getting roflstomped.
Also, I want to start playing my NC alt more... Maybe this increase in organization will drive me to do so.

Come get some, freedom fries lovers!

Love the enthusiasm, but if you're actually serious about building an alliance, this is the backwardest way to go about it. Alliances start with actually getting to know other players on the live server and playing with them. If you're actually serious about improving the NC, this is the backwardest way to go about it. Improving the NC begins with building a good outfit.

1. First things first. Alliances don't mean jack when the outfits in them are barely legitimate. Your twelve man outfit led by your BR32 self is not going to inspire anyone to action. You need to put in some time first learning the game. Some us have been here literally years. Quit trying to save the entire faction when I'm pretty sure your outfit probably doesn't even have a certed out battle Gal. You need to recruit, recruit, recruit. You need to get to know experienced players, whether they're NC or others, and learn what tactics are effective and start using them. You need to play a LOT, grind certs, and improve your outfits skill, both as individual players and as a team. You need to start paying attention to who you're fighting next to and get to know the player environment and who the key leaders are throughout the Emerald NC and getting to know them and playing with them by becoming their friend in game rather than by trying to get their attention through a forum post they're all going to ignore. This leads me to my next point.

2. There are already three NC 'alliances' out there. The NCU (from Mattherson), the NCHQ (from Waterson), and the Coalition of Badass which formed post merge. The NCU is mostly dead last I checked, although the website persists. Pretty sure it's a similar story for the NCHQ. The Coalition of Badass is here: http://coalitionofbadass.com:1337/ and frankly that's the best 'alliance' website I've ever seen - it's more social network than forum, which is what an alliance actually needs. No one needs a faction forum to debate how the NC should be conducting it's business when the reality is that the problem is at the outfit level. Alliances are simply about knowing who is who, and who's online, and the CoB seems to be accomplishing that. Also FWIW most of the veterans in the community don't read this forum and will not even see your post. Maybe if you want to start getting a better sense of who's who in the Emerald community go check out http://www.reddit.com/r/EmeraldPS2

Let me rephrase for emphasis: saving the NC does not start with a grand alliance. It starts with your outfit. It starts with you as a player. Trying to organize inter-outfit coordination is admirable, but it doesn't mean anything when your own outfit is not experienced enough, skilled enough, or large enough to take on the large scale battles of Auraxis on your own.

My advice, just from someone who played NC: Press T to go to third-person view when you back up a vehicle, or just flip the turret around when you go to reverse. Running over your own people, particularly your valiant, trustworthy, loveable engineers, doesn't help your push any.

The Coalition of Badass started on Waterson - there's a long story about when i began it that i won't go into here but suffice it to say that i have seen how it worked extremely well with Waterson's pop. Emerald's stupid high pop makes the original mission it had a bit more difficult, so now yes, it's more social networking than anything else.

Suffice it to say that after so much time with so many different outfits, there's a large amount of infighting on the NC. CoB outfits more or less like each other, and we're always willing to support the other in a fight.

Recently we've been unable to do much because of the queues to get to Alert continents, but when no alerts are on, we have fun and do well by knowing when to help each other.

There are two ways I see the NC actually working well.

1.) Everyone drops egos and past 'hurts' and find a 'high command' of people who know what they're doing and how to organize that many people who are willing to be led. Given how the game is designed, hard to see this happening.

2.) All the small outfits merge into a few medium sized outfits specifically to play redeployside or reinforce the large zergs when and where needed. Support outfits per say.

Neither of these is likely to happen. I'm all for more NC co-ordination, but since the merge, i can't say I've seen any real cooperation save for a few outfits (and those know who they are) as everyone else wants to only rely on their own efforts.

A few things:

1. First of all - this alliance effort is being done in addition to in-game coordination with various outfit leads. We are by no means putting all our eggs in one basket by trying to blitz the SOE forums and hope that recruits just magically roll in. But having some extra press does help.

2. As to the other NC 'alliances' out there, the reason we aren't taking a bottom-up approach to bring in outfits to supplement the numbers of existing alliances is precisely because - as some have pointed out - most of them are dead and gone or lack substantial leadership to offer anything other than more stuff to fix. The NCAE would kick-start as a new initiative, designed to bring in new leadership that everyone is calling for.

3. On the note of leadership, there's nothing more idiotic than hearing people scream for leaders to step up and then when some do, they are met by hecklers and cynics - both of whom either have an agenda or simply like to dwell on negatives rather than pitch in. But since this alliance isn't gearing itself towards recruiting those types of people, then mentioning them seems to be a moot point anyway.

4. For anyone saying that there needs to be training, "cert-grinding", or other prep-work going on - you are absolutely correct. That is being done and will be encouraged. But it doesn't discount the importance of upstarting communication to lay essential groundwork for other things, which is the predominant purpose of this thread.

5. This alliance does not propose to solve the global ills of the NC faction. Its task right now is to stop some of the bleeding.

6. Time is an issue. Yet another reason why this isn't being done from the ground up between outfits, then between groups of outfits, is because there is no luxury of time present. At the current rate things are going on Emerald, a lot of NC outfits will have more incentive to swap servers or factions rather than stick around waiting for a grassroots swell. That isn't to say one wouldn't work - but that it wouldn't work fast enough.

7. To the issue of having 'legitimate' outfits being party to this - if the assumption is that just anyone with a group is being invited to jump on board to do whatever, then that's not the case. This is designed to promote membership by two types of outfits: those who are organized and those who are willing to get organized. The entrance bar is set based on attitude first, commitment second, and skills third. Expecting this to go anywhere having it set otherwise would be a fruitless effort, indeed.

8. Finally, to the subject of having a more seasoned / recognized group be the sponsor of this: one of biggest reasons any long-standing alliance fails (not just here, but in gaming in general) is precisely because the more seasoned / recognized groups are the ones who start them and they bring their agenda and personality with them as part of the package. Before long, seeds of resentment are sown because of old issues, rivalries, and disagreements that can all be traced back to that same old record. And the rest is history. Precluding more object lessons in this requires a different approach - which brings us back to here and now.

Any NC outfits who are willing to work together, regardless of size or skill, should take an interest in this. In the short-term, creating a new alliance will allow new opportunities for your group in recruitment and training. In the long-term, you'll have the chance to be a part of something that can change the state of things on Emerald for the NC.

But none of that starts until people start getting on board.

They usually turn into power trips and trolling. People don't come home from work to play a video game only to have a fourteen year old twisting their arm to attend "meetings" and flaming your outfit or instigating tensions if you don't attend or don't want to hold hands and walk across Indar with them.

At least someone is trying.

There are good ways to accomplish goals, and there are poor ways to accomplish goals. If your goal is to plant an apple tree in a clearing, messily eating an apple in the hopes that seeds fall and take root is not terribly effective.