Beskar Guild Charter (v.2.Apr.12)

Preface
This charter should be read and understood by all Beskar members. If you have any questions or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact an Ori’vod or the Guild Leader directly.

Mission Statement
Beskar is a Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) guild for Imperial characters playing on the Sanctum of the Exalted server. We also run a sister guild on the same server, to be used for the Republic characters of Beskar members. This guild is called Beskar Tsad Droten. The purpose of either guild is to be a strong, family-like structure, run with common-sense and decency, so that people will enjoy being part of it and will return, week after week, month after month and year after year as they play TOR.

Organization

Leadership – Guild Leader and Ori’vode

Beskar was created, and is run by, ‘blur’. As the Guild Leader, it falls under blur’s remit to:

- Run the Beskar website, forum and Ventrilo server.
- Approve or reject all guild applicants (after input from existing members).
- Remove guild members, if appropriate.
- Appoint or remove Ori’vode.
- Set the overall direction and tone of the guild.

The Guild Leader is assisted by a group of members called Ori’vode who, broadly speaking, have the role of traditional guild officers on the guild’s website, forum, chat channel, Ventrilo and, of course, within TOR itself, but with a few notable differences as well.

When an Ori’vod is appointed, they electronically sign the following pledge:

As a Beskar Ori’vod, I understand:
1) Despite holding a position of responsibility and trust within the guild, my opinion on guild affairs and in decisions relating to the running of the guild holds no more, or less, weight than that of any other member.
2) Despite having access to a private moderators forum, this is not to be used for anything other than moderation – and related – discussion. All general topics and “chit chat” remain on the main forum with all members.
3) That I can be replaced, at any time, if blur feels my performance is lacking in some way, eg: not online enough to be of use; not being pleasant to members; incapable of performing the role, etc.
4) That I should monitor my own performance and if I feel I’m not able to put in adequate effort, consider standing down before being asked. Beskar Ori’vod is not a position to be held onto if you can’t do it.

At all times, the number of Ori’vode will be kept to what is an appropriate amount of individuals to assist the overall membership. We don’t seek to give out the title for the sake of it, ending up with an overkill situation, such as a leader or Ori’vod for every three or four members. The less levels and formal roles within the guild, and the more the guild can look after itself by agreement, the better.

Membership – The Soul of the Guild

Any Beskar member who doesn’t hold a Guild Leader or Ori’vod title is formally known as a Member of the guild. There are no ranks within the membership meaning that someone who joined the guild last week has exactly the same title, guild privileges, voting rights and other attributes as a guild member who, for example, might have joined a year before them. The rationale for this is:

- As adults, we don’t need to reward ourselves with ridiculous titles to feel good about ourselves.
- There’s no “power” for members to aspire to. Just sit back, relax, and play nicely with each other.
- You either want to be a Member within Beskar, or you don’t. Because that’s what we offer.

Forum Titles

Although Beskar has a flat structure of command, there are still six titles which you will see attached to forum accounts, stretching from non-members right through to the top of the guild. They are:

- Beskar Leader
- Beskar Ori’vod
- Beskar Member
- Beskar Ne’kaan
- Friend of Beskar
- Beskar Guest

If you have read this document from the start, the titles above will be quite self-explanatory, with the possible exception of Beskar Ne’kaan. This is a title to designate Beskar Members who have decided to stop playing TOR, but whom have elected to remain active on our forum regardless. The Friend of Beskar title is conferred to non-members from other guilds who wish to post in our public section.

Code of Conduct

Whether posting on the Beskar forum, using the Beskar forum chat channel (text), using the Beskar Ventrilo server (voice), or playing TOR itself, members are held to the same code of conduct – a copy of which is ‘stickied’ at the top of each and every Beskar forum so it’s impossible to ignore.

This Code of Conduct emphasizes respect for your fellow members, via:

You will not use profane language.
You will not post messages that are in any way racist, sexist, abusive or obscene.
You will not solicit or offer explicit, X-rated, or similar content.
You will not seek to encourage debate on the topics of religion, sex or politics.
You will not incite or be aggressive in tone.
You will respect the right of others to express their opinion (within these guidelines).
You will not post irrelevant text designed to disrupt discussion.
You will not post links to “warez”, “torrents” or anything else that encourages copyright violation.
You will not make any statements that could be construed as defamatory of an individual, group or business.

Other topics covered include: Discipline, Signature Size, Multiple Registration and Forum Moderators. It is advised that members acquaint themselves with the Code of Conduct upon gaining membership.

Core Rules

Outside of the Code of Conduct sit the following rules that are just as important. These are known as the guild’s ‘core rules’ and apply to each and every Beskar member just like the Code of Conduct:

Guild First: We expect all members to ensure that actions they take are done in the mindset of ‘guild first’. What does this mean? It means that anything a member does reflects on the image of the guild and its members. We expect members will only take actions that reflect positively on the image that we have worked hard to build and maintain since December, 2008.

We recruit the PERSON not the CHARACTER. In other words, when you’re on Beskar’s server in TOR, we don’t think it’s too much of an imposition to want your attention. Put another way, Beskar members shouldn’t be the member of any other guild – Imperial or Republic – on our server.

It is not permitted to relay internal information outside the guild, for any reason, at any time. Beskar is a private gaming guild, therefore no member should reveal internal information, about anyone or anything, no matter how minor they may think it is, outside the guild.

Participation in guild events, flashpoints, operations and other in-game activities is at the discretion of each member. You will never be “expected” at a guild event, flashpoint, operation or other in-game activity unless you have specifically indicated in some format (e.g.: on the forum, Ventrilo, etc), that you will be present. So the rule of thumb is, if you say you’re going to attend, please turn attend! But if you haven’t indicated you will be present for an activity, your non-appearance will not count against you in any way, shape or form.

Beskar membership is a privilege not a right. Members are marked “inactive” if they don’t post on the forum for a period of one week without prior notice to their guild mates. Anyone who remains “inactive” for an additional week is removed from the guild roster completely. In this way, it takes a generous two weeks of not communicating to your guild mates, without prior warning, to be removed.

The Guild Leader does reserve the right to check through the logs for people who are playing to the rules, but not by the spirit of the rules. This refers to members who might, for example, decide to log into the forums every four or five days and lay down a post to ensure they aren’t caught out. By doing that, however, they still aren’t contributing and getting known within the Beskar community. This “flying under the radar” behaviour won’t be tolerated, either. Beskar is about turning up, being active and building a great community, not cheating the rules.

We want members to name their TOR characters sensibly as we wish to present ourselves as a mature guild to the TOR community and, in particular, to the roleplaying community that will surround us on our RP/PvE server. In this context, “sensible” means names that wouldn’t look out of place in a Star Wars novel, or comic. In light of the Legacy system creating a situation whereby some members might want to be known only by a single name as they don’t want to display the Legacy name of their main character, however, single “call-sign” or “nickname” names are acceptable in Beskar so long as, again, they are “sensible” in nature. For example, “Spanners” (a mechanic), “Pup” (a youngster), and “Crusher” (a tough guy), would be good “call-sign” or “nickname” names, whilst silly names like “Doofus”, “Jedi’Killah” and “Doinit’Fortheloot” will be rejected. At the end of the day, whether it’s a full name with a firstname and lastname, or a call-sign or nickname, simply ask yourself if it would be realistic to see your character name in a Star Wars novel or comic. If you think it would, chances are your character name will be fine with us. There are 1000s of good names out there!

When a new applicant posts an application to join the guild on the Beskar forum, it’s not compulsory for members to respond with questions and/or comments in relation to the application, however, it’s highly recommended. At the end of the day, these are people who represent potential guild mates for ALL of us, and the more people who can be involved, the better the process. There is no hierarchy or group of people who can ask questions. Any member, new or old, is welcome.

Members may not use cheats or exploits in TOR. We want to have a reputation as talented gamers, but not at the cost of being known as cheaters.

Make friends in the guild. At our core we are a Team of Friends. So make friends. Those friendships make us strong. There is no simpler way this rule can be conveyed.

Playing Star Wars: The Old Republic

Chatbox

In any MMO, management of the chatbox (or ‘chat window’) is very important to having fulfilling communication with others in the game. When you first login, you will find your chat box moves at a rapid rate with text of all kinds such as ‘global’ chat from everyone on the server, ‘guild’ chat from people in your guild, ‘group’ chat if you’re currently in a group, ‘trade’ chat from people looking to sell in-game items, ‘spatial’ chat from anyone standing near your character in the game world… and more. We recommend cutting down your main window to the minimum number of chat channels you feel comfortable with. For some people, this could be as few as ‘guild’ chat and ‘group’ chat. The theory behind this is that if a guild member is talking (whether to you, or the whole guild), there is a greater chance of you seeing the message if it’s not immediately pushed off the screen by two-dozen other messages from the other chat channels. If you are still interested in the other chat channels, they can be added via additional ‘tabs’. If you do not know how to configure the chatbox, ask a fellow member.

Groups

Flashpoints, Operations, PvP and even general PvE questing can all involve forming groups. When forming a group, it’s important to consider a few key points to make the experience enjoyable.

- Agree to a leader, if required. The leader will organize how the group will proceed and react to the scenario. This doesn’t mean the leader’s role is to be a dictator – the best groups are based on cooperating – however, the leader’s requests (if reasonable) should be followed by the group.
- Use Ventrilo whenever possible! This is covered in the following section in greater detail.
- It is expected that all members of a party behave in the spirit of the game and, if non-Beskar members are in the group, that they are encouraged to do the same and be of a like-mind.
- Unless an item is specifically assigned to you in an Operation by the game itself, most items a group will come across are made available with a Need/Greed option. The only characters which should ever roll ‘Need’ are characters with a use for the item. For example, if a chestpiece for a Sith Warrior drops, an Imperial Agent, for example, should never roll need for that. People whose characters would not be well served by an item drop (and particularly those who cannot use the item at all), should roll Greed, or click the ‘X’ in the top right corner of the Need/Greed box and pass completely. Please discuss the matter beforehand if there is any intention from some members to use a “non-standard” system.

Ventrilo

Ventrilo is VoIP software which includes text chat. A headset/microphone is used to speak to other people running the software. Ventrilo is widely used by gamers, who refer to it as ‘Vent’, and who use the software to communicate with other players on the same team of a multiplayer game.

In terms of using Ventrilo socially or to game, our standard code of conduct applies. For example, just as you wouldn’t post profanity in the Beskar forums, you are asked to refrain from speaking profanity on our Ventrilo server. With regard to gameplay, the following additional rules are also in place.

- Ventrilo use is not compulsory for people playing with Beskar in The Old Republic.
- At the same time, however, all members must acknowledge that Ventrilo is the superior communication medium to text therefore, if people want to be an attractive potential group member for some PvP or PvE activity, the #1 way to achieve this is by being on Ventrilo.
- Importantly, this doesn’t mean that anyone forming a group for PvP or PvE must only pick Ventrilo users. If a group is comfortable with the idea of one, or more, of its personnel communicating through text, that’s fine, but text users cannot EXPECT or DEMAND this to be the case.

Roleplaying

Roleplaying within Beskar takes two distinct forms. The first form takes place on our forum, whereby members write stories about their character which may, or may not, be interactive collaborations with others. The second is roleplay which occurs between characters in TOR itself.

On the forum, stories are typically handled with two separate threads, each with the story title in them, but one will feature the phrase ‘OOC’ (out of character), which is where participants in the story thread can discuss their next “scenes” with each other, rather than cluttering the story with such direction.

In-game, roleplaying can be done in a variety of ways and it is typically best for a group of roleplayers to decide among themselves how to best achieve the result they desire. For example, some roleplayers might like to talk in general guildchat as ‘themselves’ but speak to those in their general vicinity in the game as their character. Others might not like to act as ‘themselves’ at all. Work it out in advance.

Additional

Friends and Family policy

We believe that some of our best members over time have come via recommendations from existing members. After all, who knows us best than an existing member? And who can have a better 1:1 conversation with a non-Beskar person about what the guild is like, and what we are looking for in members, than that person’s friend or family member? In this way, we welcome and encourage existing Beskar members to recommend friends and family to join us if they think they would like Beskar.

Grievances

If you have a grievance, we have a method for reporting the grievance so that it can be investigated and action taken, if required. To report a grievance either PM ‘blur’ as the guild leader or, if the grievance relates to blur (or is a topic best mentioned to one of the Ori’vode for some other reason), PM one of the Ori’vode. Please be sure to include all the details of the incident (date & time, location in game, all the details on what happened, etc). If you have screenshots or other information that helps tell your story, please mention that in your PM. Those will likely be requested in order to clearly show the facts and eliminate personal interpretation of the facts from clouding the issue at hand. We take ALL issues that affect our guild image VERY seriously. We seek to project a mature, professional and friendly image to ensure we are adding value to the TOR community we participate in.

Amendments

blur reserves the right to change the contents of the Charter at any time it is deemed necessary to do so. When changes are made to the document, a thread will be made in ‘The Boardroom’ about it.

Finally…

Finally, please have fun. Although it looks like there are a lot of procedures and rules in place, most of these are common sense, and are meant as a safeguard to keep the guild, both in-game and out of game, as active and relevant to a game we all love as possible. Abusing these rules can affect everyone who enjoys this guild, so we ask for your cooperation and support in achieving and maintaining this goal.

Thank you for being part of this community!