Goblin Squad Member
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I know this is a concern that came up earlier today so I'll give my thoughts on it. I believe that on some level every member of a company is responsible for the actions of every other member within their company.
Let me elaborate. Membership in a company is voluntary. You can leave at any time. Should leadership make decisions you do not agree with, the option to walk is always there, so in belonging to a company you show either support or apathy for the decisions made by your leadership.
Given that company members (in general) can be assumed to contribute to their company in some fashion even apathy enables your leadership to make the decisions they make. In other words, all players within a company can be assumed to back the objectives of their leadership and company as a whole.
But it goes a step further than that. Leadership has the ability to punish or remove their membership if they feel they have stepped out of line.
To illustrate my point we'll give a pretty extreme example not directed at any person or group on these forums. Lets say a member of your company advocated the genocide of a certain racial group and loudly vocalized that opinion to all who would hear. Would you not expect leadership to remove them from your group, and if they did not, would you remain with that group?
The same logic can be applied to any other decision made by the company. Sure, most are much less serious and easier to overlook but if someone outside your group feels you've overlooked something serious enough to be worth war deccing you over, then you can anticipate they would, and should, wage war against your group as a whole.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think we both know the process of leaving a country is far more painful than leaving any gaming organization. Especially if there are people with guns at the border saying you can't go.
Though I do believe some responsibility does lie with the citizenship of any country to rise up if their government commits atrocities. I'm just a bit more sympathetic to those who are too afraid to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, if you disagree with anything that happens in your company you should leave it? You can't disagree with something, but stay to try to fix it or because the greater goal of the company is more important than a single issue. Nope, it's wholehearted support on every single issue or you should leave. How simplistic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a single member is voicing an unspoken opinion held by a percentage of the company as a whole, and that opinion is contrary to that of Leadership, what then? What is Leadership's responsibility to self assess when they are no longer represent the majority opinion of the company?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've been pondering this question for some time. This seems to apply to anyone that will get a Settlement during the Landrush.
T7V will have Phaeros. Yet each Settlement will have several companies (especially Sponsored Companies). You can only have one Sponsored Company and the optimal size will be around 50 members. T7V started as a Chartered Company but may wind up a Meta Organization.
If that is the case and other follow suit like TEO and even UNC with Aragon then it would be really hard to declare a feud with the entire T7V, TEO, UNC, etc...
I don't remember reading it anywhere but it might be so, but if a Company is able to feud a Settlement, then that Company would suddenly become hostile to every Company that calls the Settlement home even if they are not part of Company that founded the Settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, if you disagree with anything that happens in your company you should leave it? You can't disagree with something, but stay to try to fix it or because the greater goal of the company is more important than a single issue. Nope, it's wholehearted support on every single issue or you should leave. How simplistic.
We're assuming here that you already addressed the concern and that it wasn't resolved. If you stay that demonstrates apathy. That may not justify your personally leaving the settlement if you don't fell very strongly about that issue but if someone else feels so strongly about said issue they will go to war over it then it justifies them holding you at least partially responsible. Especially if you continue to contribute to your group in any way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are some valid points. There is, however, the issue of knowledge. Some members of a group will not be aware of some actions of other members of the group. In the most extreme cases (Say Scientology) members may not even be aware of the actions that the group is taking currently as a matter of policy. On the far more common front, they may not know of things that were done in the past that simply aren't discussed any more.
Once they are informed, they can make an informed choice. But even then, informed is often a relative thing. They may remain unaware of exactly how those actions are interpreted by others, and my not understand the level of threat their membership in the group poses. Are they then deserving of the results? They made a choice to be part of the group, and they may even feel they've made an informed choice. To give another extreme example, knowing that many practitioners of a religion, possibly even their own religion, do not approve of females being educated. Are then young women and girls responsible for the decision to attend school such that they deserve to be kidnapped and forced into marriage? Are their parents responsible for having permitted it?
I think in any war there are going to be people targeted who don't really deserve it. Fortunately, in a game, the repercussions are less enduring.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, you're confusing apathy with compromise. That I accept that a loss on a single issue does not invalidate the good I can do within a group does not mean I do not care about the issue. Second, you seem to be operating under the premise that a decision, once made, can never ever ever be changed. So of course, if you raised your objection and it wasn't resolved you should just give up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I will link a post I entered previously regarding organization larger than an individual making decisions related to this topic. A kingdom is somewhat responsible for the actions of their settlements, and a settlement is responsible for the actions of their companies, and flowing downward, a company is responsible for the actions of their individual members. That said, we all know there will be stupid kids you didn't now were so stupid, enemy spies in your group planted to cause trouble, genuine accidents and misunderstandings, so the larger organization needs some reaction time to remedy the situation or conduct diplomacy to prevent deteriorating relationships.
This thread A-proposal-for-training-diplomats-in-settlements-and-kingdoms discusses this a bit, but mostly in the mechanics of a diplomatic UI control panel so the players with the correct skill level and responsibility can adjust organizational relationships, with a time delay. It also covers the stage of the relationship using a color code. The delay noted in the hard to decipher matrix is the tool that gives the leadership of the offending individual time to remedy the situation (among other things).
So, yes. Companies, Settlements and Kingdoms will be responsible for the action of their member units. There are already some groups that are trying to distance some elements from other elements within their larger organization in order to feign innocence. Everyone can see through that charade and knows what is a rose, and what is a stinker.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a single member is voicing an unspoken opinion held by a percentage of the company as a whole, and that opinion is contrary to that of Leadership, what then? What is Leadership's responsibility to self assess when they are no longer represent the majority opinion of the company?
It depends on the nature of the group and the nature of the issue. If the group is designed to serve the interests of their members then they should amend their policy to what the membership desires. However sometimes there are policies that come above the will of the membership. If you join a company with a stated purpose they hold as their core ideology, and then attempt to change that purpose, then you never should have joined the group in the first place.
For instance say I and 5000 other members joined UNC made minimal to no contributions and then said. "We believe that greater UNC should give up their Not Blue Rob It policy" That would be absurd because UNC was founded as a company of bandits. If we do not hold to their core principles we should form our own company (or sub-company) that does.
I'd also note that even as a member of a sub company that we are partially responsible for UNC's actions. The Sentinel's affiliation with Aragon is a statement we do not believe all instances of non-consensual PvP are bad for the game, and if anyone feels the need to war-dec us over that feel free. We help defend their settlement and recommend them to players wishing to be bandits so it's fully justified if you believe those are war-dec worthy issues.
Second off if we joined UNC and made decisions they knew to be bad strategy they would be right to tell the greater whole to shove it. For instance if we said attacking anyone if they have less members than we did was dishonorable and we wanted UNC to never do it their core contributors and found membership would have every right to tell to deal with it or leave.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The founder(s) of the company lay forth a vision and system of government. If you believe in that vision and find that form of government acceptable you join. If you don't, you don't. You aren't born into a company with your farm your family has had for 6 generations rooted on it's soil.
You make as choice to be there. You should not join an organization with core values and governments you don't want and expect it to change for you. That's disrespectful to the people who built it. A lot of people doing this doesn't make it any less disrespectful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We're assuming here that you already addressed the concern and that it wasn't resolved. If you stay that demonstrates apathy.
I definitely disagree with this, but agree on the larger point that if you war dec a settlement or company, there are no exceptions.
Using myself as an example, I've been gaming with Athansor for over 15 years. I don't care WHAT his vision was for Magistry, I was going to be Magistry, period. Good, evil, bandit, friendly, or otherwise. My loyalty to him and my friendship with him is worth more than any in-game decision. Sure I'll try and influence his decisions, but you aren't going to win every argument.There's really no such thing as the perfect settlement and the perfect leader with whom you will always agree. Everyone has their own opinions and you can't leave a settlement or company every time you disagree with a decision.
However, if I were a member of a settlement that someone declared war on - for any reason whatsoever - you'd never see me complain that I should be left out of it, or it's a personal issue between other people. For starters, like you say, I *could* leave if the issue were sufficiently important and I felt my leaders were in the wrong.
But more importantly, that's my damn company and my damn settlement and if you want to pick a fight with it, you better believe I'll be standing there ready to defend it.
Even if it's a personal issue with the leadership of my company, those are still the guys I'm currently fighting for, and I will have their backs. If I think they are in the wrong, and they refuse to change their position, that is where I may think about instead leaving, if I didn't have previous loyalties (and, in my case, I do) and if the issue were sufficiently important to me.
I agree, however, that any members who remain contribute by even their mere membership, and are rightly considered targets when it comes to war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally speaking, I don't see the likelihood that even the UNC would feud a company for the actions on one individual. If I have an issue with someone, I will do my best to kill them and steal their stuff. If their ability is beyond my own, I would hire a team of assassins to kill him.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally speaking, I don't see the likelihood that even the UNC would feud a company for the actions on one individual. If I have an issue with someone, I will do my best to kill them and steal their stuff. If their ability is beyond my own, I would hire a team of assassins to kill him.
...Did someone call..thought I heard my name?
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Did someone call..thought I heard my name?Personally speaking, I don't see the likelihood that even the UNC would feud a company for the actions on one individual. If I have an issue with someone, I will do my best to kill them and steal their stuff. If their ability is beyond my own, I would hire a team of assassins to kill him.
Next time Gol I got this one!!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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In MMO warfare, the greatest victory is to get the leadership and the commoners (PvE oriented players) to lose confidence in the military. The quickest way to achieve that is to kill the weakest (non PvP noobs) and the leaders as often as possible, without engaging the military.
This approach requires many assassins and those comfortable with brutal, lopsided battles.
I have witnessed, first hand and on both ends, large alliances crippled and later fractured by small corporation with less than 10 pilots.
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I have witnessed, first hand and on both ends, large alliances crippled and later fractured by small corporation with less than 10 pilots.
I had this very experience in vanilla WoW when disrupting Alliance raids on any World bosses. One of my Guilds standing activities was to go and kill their healers mid cast and follow up on the tanks to disrupt the whole thing and get them all killed. It only took 3-4 of us from a guild of personal friends and associates (about 25 members total including alts).
We were never big enough to attempt the bosses but harassing Gnomes was infitley more entertaining.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have witnessed, first hand and on both ends, large alliances crippled and later fractured by small corporation with less than 10 pilots.
I had this very experience in vanilla WoW when disrupting Alliance raids on any World bosses. One of my Guilds standing activities was to go and kill their healers mid cast and follow up on the tanks to disrupt the whole thing and get them all killed. It only took 3-4 of us from a guild of personal friends and associates (about 25 members total including alts).
We were never big enough to attempt the bosses but harassing Gnomes was infitley more entertaining.
I'm not quite sure you understood my point. It is not a matter of winning the fight on the field, it is winning the fight that fractures the structures of the corporation. In both instances that I experienced the alliances broke apart. In one, the ejected corporation WarDec'd its former ally and defeated it. In the other, the alliance leader's betrayal was revealed and several officers (my brother-in-law in particular) made off with 10's of billions of isk in assets. The alliance leader was driven from the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oligarchic/Monarchic political systems don't easily countenance disagreement, and the 'my way or the highway' requires the citizen to balance a possibly unknown suspicion or accusation against the value of all they have worked for, potentially over years, and the use of their higher-level skills.
I realize that the control-oriented autocrats supposedly deliberating a counter-argument will consider opposing views wrong just because they disagree, but it has to be said.
What do facts and reason matter to a tyrant?