Chartered Company: The Seventh Veil

Hrm. Okay then... a balanced world view literately?

Well, we have been considering a True Neutral (NN) Settlement.

It's not that we're necessarily dedicated to Neutrality, it's more that we're simply open-minded about all avenues of gaining Knowledge.

Speaking personally, I think the key word is "inclusion".

What is known is neither evil nor good: it is only what is. It is even discerning what is from what is not, and thus is anti-nihilist. With these characteristics it should only be possible, IMV, to be TN, and is antithetical to both extremist and nihilist alignments.

Hrm. Okay then... a balanced world view literately?

lol

avari3 wrote:

You mean it's too early to start pushing my agenda?

Hah! Not at all! Just don't be surprised if I push mine, too :)

Political RP that matters...makes me want to cry tears of joy. We have a really, really nice nucleus of players for it here at 7th Veil too.

Well, we have been considering a True Neutral (NN) Settlement.

I've not found it yet, but didn't Ryan say something about not having NN Settlements, in order to avoid "too many" Settlements choosing that alignment to expand their potential member-base?

I think the "no settlements that can accept everyone" part still applies, even if "no TN settlements" has been deprecated. We will adapt and overcome and find a way to support as many different characters and styles of play as possible.

We're in a discussion and planning stage, so it's premature to commit to implementation-stage details just yet.

Nihimon wrote:

Well, we have been considering a True Neutral (NN) Settlement.

I've not found it yet, but didn't Ryan say something about not having NN Settlements, in order to avoid "too many" Settlements choosing that alignment to expand their potential member-base?

At one point that was the understanding we had. Then, after one of the True Neutral/Druid threads waxed and waned Ryan stated there can be NN settlements.

Nihimon wrote:

Well, we have been considering a True Neutral (NN) Settlement.

I've not found it yet, but didn't Ryan say something about not having NN Settlements, in order to avoid "too many" Settlements choosing that alignment to expand their potential member-base?

You can totally have a NN Settlement. Your members will be NN, CN, LN, NG, AND NE. That sounds awesome to me!

How odd I didn't find that, even if I was looking for just the opposite. Thanks, Nihimon.

Ryan Dancey (Settlement mechanics) wrote:

You can totally have a NN Settlement. Your members will be NN, CN, LN, NG, AND NE. That sounds awesome to me!

That's interesting.

So am I right to think that:
LG settlement members will be LG, NG, LN (and similar for the other 'corners' of the alignment grid)
NG settlement members will be NG, LG, CG, NN (and similar for the other 'edges')
NN settlement members will be NN, CN, LN, NG, NE

Meaning that NN does give the widest range of possible member alignments, but not by as much as I might have thought. In particular no settlement can have everyone as a member.

Also, welcome new people who I haven't welcomed :)

LG settlement members will be LG, NG, LN (and similar for the other 'corners' of the alignment grid)

NG settlement members will be NG, LG, CG, NN (and similar for the other 'edges')
NN settlement members will be NN, CN, LN, NG, NE

This is my understanding.

And a bump here, too.

Hrm. Okay then... a balanced world view literately?

Wow. I just noticed this. When I first read that, I saw "literally".

Not sure if that was intentional, but I like it :)

There are a lot of posts. I only recently understood this thing about Chartered Companies in the discussion about alignment of communities. NN seems the most open, but possibility the most volatile. Would you accept members who are also members of other companies? E.G. those with whom you are allied? Or others? What happens with members when the alliance gets shaky.

Would you accept members who are also members of other companies?

Yes.

And now for the long answer :)

Chartered Companies are like small guilds. If you've ever been in a guild where it was possible for everyone in the guild to be grouped together at the same time (for example, on a raid), then that's the kind of guild a Chartered Company will probably be like.

Settlements are much, much bigger and will likely have players living there who don't really socialize directly with each other, or with the leadership. There are very few guilds that have ever been large enough to fill an entire Settlement, though there are a few: The Old Timers Guild and Gaiscioch (Go-shkee-ah) are a couple with which I am personally familiar, each having well over a thousand members.

The Seventh Veil is a more traditional mid-sized guild. We'll have more members than can fit in a single raid/group, but we won't be anywhere near large enough to populate a Settlement all by ourselves. Being a member of a Chartered Company or a Settlement only has meaning inside the game, and is governed by in-game rules like Alignment restrictions. Being a member of The Seventh Veil only has meaning outside the game, and is not subject to any in-game restrictions. We already have Lawful Good Paladins and Neutral Evil Wizards rubbing elbows on our forums. Because we're larger than a Chartered Company, we're happy to to include other whole Chartered Companies in our ranks. Because we're not big enough to fill our Settlement(s) all by ourselves, we're happy to let individual players live there without worrying too much about what Chartered Company they're a part of.

So, understanding we have limited information about the mechanics at the moment:

What, if any, restrictions would you require a prospective CC to agree to...in exchange for sponsorship?

What, if any, restrictions would you require a CC to agree to...in exchange for citizenship?

Until we have more information on what the costs and benefits are regarding sponsoring companies and naturalizing residents and/or citizens, we cannot develop specific requirements.

Also, I don't think we will ever develop a strict 'shall-issue' rule for chartered companies. At first, everything will simply have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Not being a jerk is probably the single most important factor, but character alignment (for example) might end up being a restriction forced by game design choices.

So, understanding we have limited information about the mechanics at the moment:

What, if any, restrictions would you require a prospective CC to agree to...in exchange for sponsorship?

What, if any, restrictions would you require a CC to agree to...in exchange for citizenship?

I'm just as curious what your answers to those questions would be...

I'm expecting a "trust, but verify" comment any time now.

I'm expecting a "trust, but verify" comment any time now.

We need to come up with a similarly pithy phrase to describe our actual policy, which is more along the lines of not caring what people do outside of what we see and judging them solely on their contribution to our community.

Sorry for putting you on the spot. I think this is very important as organically formed CCs start considering their alliances/allegiances to announced settlement/kingdoms. I actually made a thread recently asking just these questions, but I don't think anyone understood what or why I was asking.

I also understand no one knows for certain but I also know many of the announced groups have some idea how they would like it to work. That is all I was fishing for.

With the recent update to companies, all of our speculation about sponsoring companies is obselete; are there any groups intending to form companies that are interested in being sponsored by our settlement(s?) or in being affiliated in a less official way with our group?

I'm curious... how many veils are there in total?

6 ;)

So, which one is missing?

So, which one is missing?

The unknown one :)

From the link I posted above (that may be a tad too easy to miss)...

Sivanah's true form is disguised behind her seven veils, each of which is tied to a race (human, elf, halfling, gnome, aranea, and naga). Her true form is said to be that of a member of a seventh, unknown race.

Yeah, sorry... was browsing the web with darkvision and didn't see the color difference.

I'm eyeballing that the original CC's will probably form 3-4 kingdoms. So yeah at some point further in we have to start talking about alliances. Hopefully this board can get it together so that we have a Good, a nuetral and an evil kingdom planned from the kickstarter CC's.

Dibs on Neutral! *grins*

Bump.

Also, I think there will be a lot of hesitancy to form an evil kingdom. It will be a neon sign telling all the good and neutral kingdoms where to go if they want to expand their territory without fighting other good or neutral groups.

I also think it will be more fun to see evil groups that are harder to pin down, like what Bluddwolf's doing, or that pretend to be good or neutral when being observed, sort of like what I'm doing.

And it will be more fun seeing good and neutral groups finding other good and neutral groups being the most viable targets for expansion.

I also think it will be more fun to see evil groups that are harder to pin down, like what Bluddwolf's doing, or that pretend to be good or neutral when being observed, sort of like what I'm doing.

This may be how evil has to survive at first.

My guess is that some of these "good" kingdoms won't be so good once they have secured their power. Likely a kingdom will openly declare itself as good while building power and once they have a strong position will have the big "You know, we changed our minds about being good..." moment.

I believe BoB called themselves as good, but in reality their only objective was expanding their own power. And of course Goon Swarm were the good guys who freed EVE from the tyranny of BoB. Just like those nice Terran Dominion chaps liberated the people of The Confederacy.

If MMO history teaches anything it's that the alignment people declare themselves to follow means nothing.

If MMO history teaches anything it's that the alignment people declare themselves to follow means nothing.

I know...

If MMO history teaches anything it's that the alignment people declare themselves to follow means nothing.

Depends on the player(s).

Eldurian wrote:

If MMO history teaches anything it's that the alignment people declare themselves to follow means nothing.

I know...

THats why alignment should not be "declared" but rather be a reflection of ones actions.

/bump

Just wanted to say hey. Looking forward to collaborating with all of you. I joined The 7th Veil for a few reasons. I can envision this company becoming very influential in game. I also feel that in the long run The 7th Veil will be the best or competitive at every aspect of the game given the nature of the company. I like the proactive leadership and I'm excited to get started.

Thanks, Abadar. I'm very proud of the players we've attracted to our Company.

This comes from another thread, so please put it into the intended context:

Edit:

I should also like to add that, in the same way that the Treaty of Rovagug was proposed to address the concerns of an "Outside Entity" coming into PFO and ruining the game for all of us. Some of the smaller, more fringe companies (particularly CN, CE, Outlaws, etc) have an equal interest in knowing what the larger settlements have in store for our play style. The fact that these questions are being sent first to TEO are not just because TEO is apparently the largest company, but their stated goals are to in some way curtail our activities.

I would have the same questions for:

Pax Aeternum
Seventh Veil
Crimson Guard

Bluddwolf:

I would love to address your concerns in more depth either here or on our forums.

I believe I've posted a summary of my personal position (with appropriate disclaimers) already. Other principals might add to, endorse, or repudiate my position either publicly or privately, and our final policies might end up different from our current positions due to any number of factors.

Did that raise any concerns, or fail to address any of the concerns you already had?

Bluddwolf:

I would love to address your concerns in more depth either here or on our forums.

I believe I've posted a summary of my personal position (with appropriate disclaimers) already. Other principals might add to, endorse, or repudiate my position either publicly or privately, and our final policies might end up different from our current positions due to any number of factors.

Did that raise any concerns, or fail to address any of the concerns you already had?

Deciusbrutus,

I put up a thread with the five generic questions I have. If you have any questions to add or to ask if me, please feel free to ask there.

If there is anything you wanted to ask of me privately, feel free to do so. I will keep it private if specifically asked to.

@Bluddwolf,

I believe you're referring to PVP and Settlement Politics Pre EE and Early EE (0-3 months). I'll cross-post my reply there after making it here.

1. How would you determine a PVP interaction was a “random act”?

2. If this is a bandit’s or other PVP players thought process, can any PVP interaction be truly called “Random”?

3. At what Reputation Point would you assume someone was a “Griefer” and should be denied access to someone else’s settlement?

4. Does this apply to a settlement controlling its citizens (chartered members) or does it also include visitors that may or may not frequent that settlement often?

I make my living programming computers. I have an intuitive grasp of framing statements unambiguously, so that I have a natural affinity for instructing computers - as you might expect, this often makes me phrase things in ways that offend other human beings (often without trying).

As such, I would personally avoid ever creating a rule about how we would react to an in-game event that relied on ambiguous or untestable conditions. In other words, if I couldn't write a program to analyze the data from PFO to determine whether or not some in-game event met my criteria without generating a significant amount of false positives or negatives, then I probably wouldn't want a rule for it.

However, I think the heart of these questions has to do with whether or not we would be trying to police your actions, and generally, we won't. The Seventh Veil doesn't exist to make the world safe from Bandits. We exist to provide a safe haven (even in the Shadows) for our members. As such, we're much more interested in whether your actions are interfering with us, than whether they're "random".

5. How far outside of your immediate (political and economic) and / or geographically local interests, do you see your company exerting its influence and power?

Our goals are to provide a safe haven and lots of organized activity for our members, and to support those members in documenting their adventures in PFO. To those ends, we will support adventure blogs and a wiki.

We are also committed to the principle of Individual Freedom. We won't require our members to participate in anything they don't want to, although we will probably insist that they be a net benefit in some capacity or other.

Cross-posted to PVP and Settlement Politics Pre EE and Early EE (0-3 months).

Bump...

You know, if TSV intends to be the Barnes and Noble of the the River Kingdoms...and every Barnes and Noble has a Starbucks...And Starbucks sells pastries...that's potentially a lot of baked goods.

Greetings to the incredible The Seventh Veil,

I'm going to reach out to you guys with a consideration: Crowdforging: A Confederation of Communities

I'd be most grateful if The-Seventh-Veil could have a look through this early draft and have a think about it's possible merits and where it might align with your goals and aspirations.

Please feel free to post in that thread, at any time, if you feel there is something serious to consider here.

Respectfully, AO.

edit: Thanks Jazz ;)

AvenaOats, you changed our name in one place, but not both :-).

Looking forward to playing with the Seventh Veil in game. I applied primarily because of the relaxed attitude Ive seen their members display and the really engaging purpose and backstory of TSV. Im hoping to see this exploratory thirst for knowledge show in game in a prominent way. Just have to wait and see now :)

Looking forward to playing with the Seventh Veil in game.

Welcome, and always glad to have new potential members. I've not thought of questions to ask on our board, so I'll just say I like what I've seen in your application.

We're getting quite the international membership :)

Thank you for coming on and posting, Oberyn.