Newcomer's Obersvations

[Wolf Shaman]

Not sure if you guys get something like this too often, But I do these things with groups I join that is organized PVP. I've done this with some FPS groups I've joined over the years, as well as in MMOs when My guild joins an Alliance or what not.

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Part 1: training

Schola was Pretty much what I was expecting it to be. Bookwork, lectures, and a fun shoot em up op at the end.

I had Zero Itamae hold a late night 1-2 class for me (and 1 other person who did not make it past phase 1) that ran past 2AM SLT. Jester Spearmann Ran myself and another cadet through phase 3-4. Both instances it was either myself, or with another person, and running about 3 hours each. I appreciate the dedication and willingness to put aside the time for just 1 or 2 recruits.

Flight training was a bit of hit and miss, But understandable with people on leave and the crunch time for finals. Geo kept me busy good enough. The training sessions were alot of fun. Dog fighting was a blast and quite intense.

One thing I think that would be good to add would be a tour of the complex (range, armory, radar/meeting room, sugested home point locations, etc) to help get new recruits their berrings a bit better. I stepped out of Schola and really only knew where the classroom, Armory, and outside was. I ended up doing alot of camming around to see where everything was, and exploring, with the hope that I did not run into some restricted area and get my head loped off by a Curia's chainsword.

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Part 2: Defense.

This is where I have probably most to comment on. As most of my activity on Titan and in the ordo has been on defense.

People are quite quick to respond and move to positions when the alarm goes off. Most people tend to have their favorite spots, as I typically see them in the same places.

It appears that 98% of the time the attackers are going to run south and into the tunnel. As a reaction, That's typically where you see a majority of the dots focused with people outside the gates. This poses a couple problems IMO.

Example:

There were maby a couple people outside the wall when I jumped into Titan. I noticed that the S hill was vacant, so I decided to go sit up there for a while. Geo and Rebel pop into sim and people move to defend and fight off the attackers. It went from Me being on the hill, to myself and like 3-4 other people on the same hill. There were probably 5-6 other people to the right of me and maby 2 up on the tank.

Problem 1: Too many people all in the same area. I've had many times where I would have people jet into my fire lane or run back and forth through it. Most of the time on Defense, I'm zoomed in 3-4 times so that I can get a better view of the target, as well as able to guess where they're at by being able to zero my LOS cone on their dot. So that means I cant exactly see who is bouncing around to the left or right of me. Or the person who's about to drop right in front of me after jetting up into the air. I've Already caught one person in my fire who jumpped down into it. I dont go down to the South part of the map because of that. I dont want to shoot anyone else cause of the gaggle frak of bodies flying about down there.

Problem 2: When I noticed that there were way too many people in such a small area, I took a quick glance at my mini-map. There was a concentration of green to the S, and only 2 dots up to the North. 10-15 people outside the gates, and there are 2 watching the N. That's reason 2 why I stick to the North. There is not many people who want to guard the 'quiet' side of the map. Exception: Silver and vennie. (sorry if I misspelled, and If I missed any others that frequent the quite side of the sim. I remember tiger and Mouse.)

IMO People need to spread out evenly along the length of the trench. Most of these guys tend to attack for hours. The OIC/NCOIC could rotate people out from the N to the S to make sure everyone gets a chance at shooting Geo in the face. Plus with everyone in close proximity, Yer arty fodder waiting to happen.

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Speaky of Arty. Explosives and such being deployed by the enemy:

Yet another thing I've noticed. One person on the attacking side pulls out and uses a 203, and next thing you know, 1/2 of Ordo is packing plasma cannons or Missile launchers and nuking the crap out of all the defenders, reguardless of what their target is using to shoot back at them. I understand that people want to be able to use their big bada booms that they rarely get to use, but seriously; You have one guy who pops over the hill and gets a barrage that would make their little 203 look like a joke. This also leave the person who is not using arty/explosives getting lit up the same way, when they were not the ones who escalated it. That and there's a chance that they dont even know the guy who did bring out the explosives.

When An air target hits the sim, Astra is supposed to equal plus 1 it. 1 hostile aircraft = 2 astra aircraft. 2 hostile = 3 astra. This gives us the defensive advantage, without going overkill and they're less likely to just stick to the ground.

I think the same aspect could be applied to the use of heavy weapons. For every 1, allow 2 in response, And only use it against the target who's using the explosives. (possible exception would be against a sizable invading army. Also, if non-arty using individual was shooting at you, dont be a victim.). If there is a person in the Radar room, they could help direct fire for the Heavy weapons team so that they can These individuals could be rotated around as well, to allow for others to use their weapons too. Hell, if I had a huge plasma belching beast, I'd want to shoot people with it too. Besides, it makes a cool charge sound too!

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The way I see it, We want people to attack us. Provides a nice break from me trying to levitate the base with my mind. We should be able to provide a challenge to people on close to equal terms and have fun doing it.

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Part 3: Raids:

Have not been able to go on one yet, But From what I hear, they're fun. Only thing I can think of is maby have a couple raids a day. Why make it EU every other day? Could have the EU and US raids on the same day, every day.

Granted I've only been around during the busy time for school, and have no idea if this is normal or how summer ops work. but here's hoping.

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Part 4: Coms:

I just recently got a Vent account, so I cant comment on that.

/2 coms seem pretty good. Heard a couple times OIC directing defensive traffic, and updating people on location and direction of hostiles (i.e. target heading middle pipe, Need [name] to move north more to fill that gap by the bridge)

Off topic chatter (outside of hostiles just BSing in the spawn) has been minimal.

Something that would be more helpful when you have neutral people who show up exploring the sim during combat would be to announce a description along with the name. At typical engagement range, you cannot see the name tags above people's heads, and typically you shoot first, and ID the corpse after. It's fairly easy when it comes to Critters who stumble across the sim. "[name] is unarmed/neutral, dont shoot the cat!" - Humans could be described by color of clothing or something easily seen at range. If they're moving, "Neutral moving towards [landmark]"

I've seen way too many neutral parties caught in the crossfire, and that neutral could of been a potential recruit that just got lit up.

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Part 5: Organization.

I seriously dig it. I've seen better organization here, than I have in most other groups/mmo guilds/etc.

The Weekly meeting I especially like. It allows everyone to keep up to date and address issues in an open arena. It's organized, directed, and made of pure awesome.

After action review/combat reports. Yus! - You'd be surprised how hard it is to get people to do this. I was impressed alot when I first saw those posts.

I heard someone talking about working at keeping central records of awards and such, which is a good move imo. Was planning on suggesting that.

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Part 6: TL;DR (For candidates of code Seven-Beta.)

I'm extremely impressed thus far with Ordo, and i'm proud to be a part of it. The dedication that people display for keeping things running, Training, and all the scary behind the scenes work is commendable.

The things I pointed out are from a personal observation standpoint that I thought would be keen to make mention of, for a moment of consideration, if nothing else.

[Trevor Russell]

You do realize Schola was JUST revamped completely, so comparing it to the old Phase 4 system is a bit off-base.

Also, only Aryte leads raids. For us to have 2 raids a day, he'd have to quit his job.

Also Also, Firefox's database already records awards.

[Aelus]

Great post Wolf; thoroughly enjoyed experiencing Ordo from fresh eyes. Keep up the good work.

[Cygna]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions on the Ordo, Wolf. It was a relief to see how the Ordo operated from a rather new individuals perspective, it enlightened some dark areas.

[Dascede]

I do think I have seen Aryte lead more than one raid in a day...

As for the neutral engagement, we do have an alert system (maybe yours isn't turned on? the command is /1 alarm:on . You're not the first person that has said something about not being able to tell who is in the hub) that tells us their name, organization, rank, etc. If they're neutral, we are expected as the guard to investigate them before we blow their heads off. If they are of no known party, we IM them first of their business and hold our fire on their approach. If they are marked as neutral but have some group that is denoted as friendly or not hostile, the guard does not unleah its fury. Usually, if a recruit comes by, the person who IMed them will guide them to the handbook and application.

That does make me wonder how many people have that function turned off without knowing about it.

Thanks for your viewpoints.

[Aryte]

Thank you for doing this! I really enjoy hearing about people's perceptions. A couple things to note:

Raids: don't worry, you'll get your chance and lots of it.

Training: as Trevor mentioned, we did just do a major overhaul of Schola. But there's still not a tour, so your point stands! At one time we used to actually give a tour as part of training. The only problem was it took hours to do if there was more than one cadet.

[Tony Zadoq]

Yeah wolf great post, I read the entire thing and I have to say I like seeing things from an honest perspective.

[Silver Meridoc]

Thanks a ton for this man, in my opinion you deserve something for taking the time to write this observation. In truth i agree fully with what you are saying, in general Ordo is a fun and well organized military, and as Aryte had said, these sort of things are always welcome to help grow this community

[Syl Kiranov]

This is nice useful info. Things are always changing around here, so some of this is being addressed constantly (like heavy weapon limitations and defense positions.) It all seems pretty much in line with our goals.

I try to give cadets a tour personally if I'm around and not busy, to help them get oriented. Lately I haven't been around as much though. I agree it would be nice if we had an official tour at the end of schola. :)

[Wolf Shaman]

You do realize Schola was JUST revamped completely, so comparing it to the old Phase 4 system is a bit off-base.

Also, only Aryte leads raids. For us to have 2 raids a day, he'd have to quit his job.

Also Also, Firefox's database already records awards.

I personally do not feel it is off base. I am aware that the Schola program has been revamped and went from a 4 phase to a 6 phase program. I thought I was going to get recycled into the 6 phase program when I was in Schola.

My point of view was from my experience. Yes, I have not gone through or know about the new setup, But I was in no way trying to compare it with the 4 phase version that I went through. I apologize if I failed to convey that intention in my writing of the original post.

IV-408: Assault authority (in any capacity) is strictly limited to the Office of the Imperator-- no other official may sanction offensive maneuvers.

===(also, thanks for the Help Silver)

[16:26] Silver Meridoc: [ E-5 ] Vexillarius (Equivalent to: Staff Sergeant)

- Mid-level NCO, with greater discretion in enforcing policies. Furthermore, Vexillarius receive the capability to lead assaults with approval of the Imperator.

- Vexillarius receive another (1) unlock point, able to be redeemed for technology.

According to the above, It is not required for the Emperator (or his alts) to lead raids. if we managed to get the near 250 ordo we have to be online, I'm sure we have enough E-5+ to lead a raid on every military sim out there at the same time. The plans for the raid just need Aryte's Stamp of Approval prior to execution.

My comments on the Database was based off of what I've seen mentioned in the Weekly meetings:

Ordo Meeting 4/25/09

[19:00] Aryte Vesperia: To add: please list the merits you have earned in your forum signature!

[19:01] Aryte Vesperia: It helps keep track, especially for your unit officers.

-

meeting, 5/2/09

[18:58] Scientific Waffle: If I am offline and you need to IM me about this, also send me a refilled merit form.

[18:59] Scientific Waffle: I delete merit forms I have gone through, so if there was an error I will not still have your merit form.

It sounded like there was no real form of Merit/award tracking outside of forum sigs.

While doing some Digging, I did find this:

What's the URL for that thingy that we have that firefox made that tracks our emrits? :D?

http://65.99.248.214/ordo/

So I withdraw that statement. It was a newbie mistake.

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As for the neutral engagement, we do have an alert system (maybe yours isn't turned on? the command is /1 alarm:on . You're not the first person that has said something about not being able to tell who is in the hub) that tells us their name, organization, rank, etc. If they're neutral, we are expected as the guard to investigate them before we blow their heads off. If they are of no known party, we IM them first of their business and hold our fire on their approach. If they are marked as neutral but have some group that is denoted as friendly or not hostile, the guard does not unleah its fury. Usually, if a recruit comes by, the person who IMed them will guide them to the handbook and application.

That does make me wonder how many people have that function turned off without knowing about it.

Yeah, Learned about that feature when I was wondering how people knew I TPed back to my home point inside the base from another sim.

Normal non-combat situations where Joe Shmo shows up, it's not a problem. I have yet to see a neutral party get shot while things are quiet.

The Problem comes up when We're in the middle of being attacked. I.E. People shooting at us. Neutral guy comes on (and typically they're quite oblivious to bullets flying about) walks over the bridge and gets plugged by Mini-gun fire from 3 points on the wall. Neutral is called, but at the range you typically shoot at people, the name does not pop up unless you altcam them. I see this happen frequently.

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I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to convey my train of thought and try to clear up any parts that may of been confusing. Words are not my strong point.

Thanks to everyone else who Posted comments. They are much appreciated.

[Tsume Xiao]

Great post and Im glad to see you are enjoying things so far. :D

My biggest remarks are with the defensive stuff, mostly where I agree and have stuff to add :o

The clustering and jumping into bullets is a several part problem, but can be broken into 3 main parts:

Clustering. Communication. Excessive fire.

Clustering is its own problem. Makes people a big target for one explosive, sweep of gunfire ect. It also increases friendly fire.. which leads to the next two points...

Communication of who is engaging who is key. If there are 3 people int he south who are engaging, the other people in the north shouldnt engage unless the people in the south request help, or need another angle of fire. The main reason full out engagement from all sides should be avoided is the third point...

Excessive fire is more than just unneeded. Yes, you have unlimited supplies of ammo, doesn't mean you should just fire it off. As in the above mentioned situation, if the northern defenders fire when not needed that cluster in the south could easily be hit.

Additionally, firing at targets behind extremely heavy cover, such as mountains, is useless. Firing at the location where someone who was just shot was, silly and pointless. Although in severe lag it can be attributed to phasing/temp ghosting of the avatar, a good rule of thumb is that if they stopped moving in a barrage of bullets, they are dead. The "tactical" aspect of surpressive fire doesnt really hold up in SL, because pining them down is best used for flanking, and stopping the enemy from taking the route.. the latter not plausible because they can just back up and walk around, the former not plauseable on defense because we arent permitted to go past the ravine...

Excessive fire also adds to physics and script load that could be left available simply by not firing. A lot of small things add up, and in this case, can add up very quickly.

YAY RANTING :D

SO YEAH!

WELCOME!

:D

[Niiya Narayan]

Thankyou for this post, it's really nice to see some feedback on how the group's run. I can tell you've put alot of thought into it which is admirable.

According to the above, It is not required for the Emperator (or his alts) to lead raids. if we managed to get the near 250 ordo we have to be online, I'm sure we have enough E-5+ to lead a raid on every military sim out there at the same time. The plans for the raid just need Aryte's Stamp of Approval prior to execution.

Quite right, i've seen a few such raids in my time here. They just need the approval from Aryte and a decent level of organization.

Over the summer we may see a few of these as activity levels will be at their peak.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to convey my train of thought and try to clear up any parts that may of been confusing. Words are not my strong point.

You don't come off as argumentative at all!

Really good thought provoking post, well done!

[Anlysia Gregoire]

Oftentimes when Aryte is out of town he'll get ahold of an officer to put together a raid, so we don't get bored. ;3 But it all has to go through him in the end. What a jerk. *tease*

[Aryte]

Your post isn't argumentative at all. It's the epitome of respectful observation. :)

You are correct, the merit log thing is a bit haphazard at the moment. We're working on it!

As for:

- Mid-level NCO, with greater discretion in enforcing policies. Furthermore, Vexillarius receive the capability to lead assaults with approval of the Imperator.

- Vexillarius receive another (1) unlock point, able to be redeemed for technology.

That has largely become defined more correctly as "elements of assaults." On many occasions I do simply sit back and let a senior NCO or officer do the commanding, while checking in to make sure everything's okay. There are (and you'll witness) occasions where attacks are pre-planned and pre-approved where I'm not around, though! Especially when I'm on vacation.