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I’m troubled by what I am seeing with the Pax Gaming organization. It seems unfair to give them two settlements as they are one “guild.” And what I’m seeing in their public forms, does not give credit to them being separate organizations. What I see is a majority of Golgotha’s applicants come from Aeternum and Fidelus, judging by their own rosters, unless those are not kept up to date.
In Ryan’s statement, The three winners were explicitly asked not to participate in the 2nd land rush. At very least, every new Pax member that plans to live in Aeternum, should only vote for Aeternum. From what I can tell, the other two winners are doing exactly this.
This is from the announcement Ryan Made:
The last question we got involves members of a winning Phase I guild who did not vote in the Phase I poll. Technically, these people are free to participate in the Phase II promotion by affiliating themselves with another guild. The temptation to use this exception as a way to create a shadow guild to snag two (or more) spots in the Land Rush will be high, and we strongly urge you not to do so. If you don't plan to play as a member of another guild, we'd ask that you just not participate in Phase II of the land rush.
This is a quote from Pax’s own public forums, from a Pax staff member:
I believe if you have not voted in the first Land Rush for Aeternum, the plan would be to have you vote for Golgotha so as to help that division procure the settlement spot it desires.
This was among other statements instructing members of Pax that did not vote in the first landrush, to apply for Golgotha.
And Lee’s later statement about voting for the guild you want to win, was directed at unaffiliated players. Not a tool for large organizations to influence the competition. Which also goes against what Ryan said in the bolded section above.
Is Pax Golgotha a separate guild and should they get a settlement?
No, Pax is one “guild” for the purpose of this competition. If the organization has a singular leader, they are one guild. If Golgotha and Aeternum had completely separate relationships, and no single entity could dictate change, they would be two separate guilds. Also they all use a “Pax” prefix here, which gives more support to them being one guild.
While what they are doing does not break the “don't switch your vote if you won in Phase 1” rule, it goes against the spirit of the competition. Pax should not be able to take another slot, it is unfair to the guild that comes in 31st place.
While Goblinworks is at fault for not organizing or explaining the first Land Rush well, Golgotha joined Pax and gave them their votes. They decided to join Pax instead of going for their own settlement, I do not see them as being entitled to go for a settlement now. The Second Land Rush should not be treated as a second chance. They made their decision, they should stick with it.
Goblin Squad Member
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Obviously Ozem's Vigil is not connected with this either. A player has the right to vote for whomever they want to vote for. As long as they are abiding by the rules set forth, I don't see any problem with it. You can't force people to vote or not to vote for another settlement, regardless if that other settlement happens to have the word Pax before it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gotta disagree with the OP here. They should be viewed as two separate organizations in the Pax alliance. Yeah, sending Aeternum folks to vote for Golgotha is crooked but it doesn't discredit Golgatha from being its own entity.
Now, if some of those folks want to come drop a few votes on Prophecy, which is completely unrelated to Pax, then I won't complain.
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Goblin Squad Member
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TEO actually discussed this at some length as well and while some felt it went against the spirit of the rules established, most felt it fell into a sorta grey area due to Golgatha joining Pax after it had already establishing itself prior. If Ryan and the rest of GW weren't against it or saying anything, we figured should be fine and not our place to say otherwise in any case.
*edit* What Nihimon said below...put it better and with quotes! :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there's any doubt, I want to reiterate something I said earlier:
A follow on question to that regards federations of guilds where several independent groups pledge to work together in-game. This is a bit of a corner-case but we would rather err on the side of engagement than in disengagement. So we are ok with federated guilds participating in Phase II, with the proviso that anyone who voted for a winning guild in Phase I is still ineligible to participate in Phase II. A "federated guild" is a separate organization of people organized primarily independently of a guild that won Phase I, not just a subset of a winning Phase I guild's members who want to have their own identity and take part in Phase II.This seems to very directly address the situation Golgotha is in. I don't see any reason they shouldn't pursue their own Settlement in the next phase of the Land Rush.
I can understand why some folks who aren't familiar with the history might think that Pax is Pax is Pax, but I would hope that I've earned some small amount of trust from the community as a bit of PFO Historian, and I can personally attest to the history of the groups involved in Golgotha and that they had a very strong, independent presence prior to hooking up with Pax, and I have no doubt they wouldn't have joined Pax if they'd known it would disqualify them from getting a Settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the OP has a legitimate point if Pax is telling its members to vote for Golgatha if they didn't vote the first time, thus ensuring that one organization gets to start with two settlements.
TEO is a member of Covenant of the Phoenix; would it be kosher to create a new "guild" and tell all the other CotP members to vote for that guild so we could get a second settlement?
It seems to me like they're gaming the system, operating within the technical rules in a way that goes against the spirit of the land rush. I don't know who the original poster is, but I'm not afraid to put up my name in support of her concerns.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wondered about this too, but I figure it's the devs job to worry about it, not mine.
Regardless of whether or not it's OK, it should at least be obvious that people are going to wonder about it. It's cropped up in multiple threads now so honestly it would be kind of nice to see Ryan or someone else weigh in and put an end to it.
If this part is true:
I believe if you have not voted in the first Land Rush for Aeternum, the plan would be to have you vote for Golgotha so as to help that division procure the settlement spot it desires.
...then it does take some steam out of the argument that they are separate.
That said, how different is it really than if Golgotha had remained separate, and they instead decided to become close allies with Pax? If everyone who is voting for Golgotha now really IS Golgotha and not extra Pax votes thrown their way, then what's the difference? If votes are being manipulated though, I dunno, that might be against the spirit of the process.
I think for me in the end, if it's OK with the devs it's OK with me. They're the arbiters of how they want the process to work and I'm OK with however they view it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Again, note that Golgatha was already a settlement and company before they joined and aligned with Pax. It's a very different scenario than the one you posted.
A better example would be if The 7th Veil joined under Covenant of the Phoenix. They'd still be a separate entity from us. They were a company and settlement before then and would still be allowed to gain a settlement. It's a grey-ish area but circumstances (and the quote from GW above) point it it being fine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They do have separate leadership.
We didn't create separate guilds so we could gain some advantage, we did it so all Pax Gaming members could play the alignment they wished. To be honest, splitting this way probably makes us weaker in the grand scale of things.
I admit it's a grey area and I don't blame the OP for being suspicious. Everyone at Pax wants to follow the spirit of the rules and they also want to vote.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If everyone who is voting for Golgotha now really IS Golgotha and not extra Pax votes thrown their way, then what's the difference? If votes are being manipulated though, I dunno, that might be against the spirit of the process.
I think the point of contention here is that they are ALL Pax votes, every last one of them. Pax has just decided that they have enough votes to rig the election by creating a second settlement and splitting their votes between the two so they get to have two settlements.
The whole argument of whether the individual votes are from people who are going to be residing in one settlement versus the other is a spurious argument; the only reason the argument exists in the first place is that this one organization decided to give themselves two settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, a throw away, really? If you are going to accuse us of something, at least have the temerity to take accountability. But for the sake of assuaging the fears of others, I'm going to address this now. Hopefully we can finally get it out of the way.
What I see is a majority of Golgotha’s applicants come from Aeternum and Fidelus, judging by their own rosters, unless those are not kept up to date.
That statement is false. I can prove that it is false, though it will take me some time to run down the particulars. The vast majority of Golgothas members either pre-date our merger into Pax Gaming, or they have joined since then specifically to play with Golgotha. If I had to guess off hand, we have gained less than ten members from within Pax. The rosters that we keep on the public facing parts of the website are not kept up to date. We have had members join since then, and we have also received votes within the land rush from individuals not directly affiliated with Pax. Asserting that we are primarily a shell group of Aeturnum has absolutely no basis in fact, and as I said above, I am willing to prove it.
And Lee’s later statement about voting for the guild you want to win, was directed at unaffiliated players. Not a tool for large organizations to influence the competition. Which also goes against what Ryan said in the bolded section above.
That is an opinion, and in my own opinion, an unfounded one. For reference, the quote from Lee that we are talking about is the following;
If you have an EE account you can apply to join any guild you want and help them get a settlement. Maybe trade your vote for promise of future favors in game? You won't get to choose settlements directly, the guild administrator does that, but you can affect what guilds get to choose. You don't have to join that settlement once the game starts; this isn't a binding contract.
Aeturnum and Fidelis have a vested interest in Golgothan military supremacy. We are all members of the same nation group (The Xeilian Empire), in much the same way that the members of the Roseblood Accord are closely related diplomatically. As long as they didn't vote for Aeturnum in the first land rush, their spare members have every developer given right to vote for whoever they damn well please. Aeturnum members giving their spare votes to Golgotha is exactly the same as Golgotha giving our spare votes to, say, Aragon, because we want to build a close friendship with them. To be clear, this stance is cutting us both ways; we have quite a few members in Golgotha that cannot vote in this landrush because they mistakenly voted for Aeturnum in the first. It's a negligible number, but it's large enough that it almost entirely outweighs any benefits we are getting from our Pax associates.
We are following the rules given out by the developers. We have been in private communication with the developers regarding this exact thing, primarily because we want to be certain that we are not breaking those rules. We are doing everything in our power to be as transparent as possible while still pursuing our stated goals, which we deem perfectly legitimate.
Golgotha existed before our merger with Pax, and we could exist should our alliance fail. The votes we would lose in the fallout of that collapse would be negligible when it comes to the leaderboards. We might fall below Keepers, but no further. In fact, by joining Pax we lost more members than we have gained internally. Golgotha would be in a better spot when it comes to votes had we never joined Pax (not that we mind, we made lots of friends along the way).
And so ends the official statement from Golgotha. Onto my personal statement;
If Pax Gaming wanted to do a massive land grab in this land rush then we could almost certainly grab more than two settlements. We have enough votes, right now, to get… eight settlements. More if we are only looking to get the back end of the leader board. We aren’t doing that. We don’t want to do that. And believe me, we would be getting recruits out the ass if we did that; people love to live in the blob. Any large organisation could step into the scene right now and screw everything up. We aren’t that kind of organisation.
TEO is a member of Covenant of the Phoenix; would it be kosher to create a new "guild" and tell all the other CotP members to vote for that guild so we could get a second settlement?
Did CotP have a presence in Pathfinder Online before the TEO merger? No. It didn’t. The circumstances are entirely different. This would have merit if instead of Golgotha, Pax was trying to get Fidelis a settlement right out of the gate. But we aren’t. Because that would be against the spirit of the rules. We have the numbers to do that, it wouldn’t be difficult for us. But we aren’t going to, because we aren’t jerks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know who the original poster is, but I'm not afraid to put up my name in support of her concerns.You just called 'He Who Shall Not Be Named' a 'her'. :p
Ha ha! And here I was trying to be gender neutral without realized that the OP declared himself a him by his very name. Oops.
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Goblin Squad Member
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He Who Shall Not Be Named,
Sir, if we all lived in the same country. We probably wouldn't live in the same province or state. Each province or state has its own individual needs and wants. Pax is a Country of gamers that is comprised of different states and provinces with their own leaders. We just choose to do it under one roof (much like a country)because we feel safe with our wive's and children playing with the people that apply and successfully get thru their app period. That being said, Golgotha is its own state Sir.
Sincerely, Ponix
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Goblin Squad Member
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He Who Shall Not Be Named,
Sir, if we all lived in the same country. We probably wouldn't live in the same province or state. Each province or state has its own individual needs and wants. Pax is a Country of gamers that is comprised of different states and provinces with their own leaders. We just choose to do it under one roof (much like a country)because we feel safe with our wive's and children playing with the people that apply and successfully get thru their app period. That being said, Golgotha is its own state Sir.
Sincerely, Ponix
And every other country in the game gets to start with one state. Except Pax who has split their vote so they get to start with two states. That's why people are crying foul.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I will say one thing, and I hope it doesn't inflame passions that are certainly already high. While I believe you have the right to go for a Settlement, and I personally think you deserve a Settlement based on your history and probably wouldn't have joined Pax if you had any clue that it would have disqualified you, I also think that Golgotha would have been on a much better footing with Ryan and the devs, and the rest of the community, if you'd been magnanimous and simply notified Goblinworks that you would be forming a guild, but asked them to ignore your votes in the Land Rush the way they're going to ignore the votes of TEO, Pax Aeternum, and T7V. I have no doubt that you'll have the strength to quickly take your own Settlement, and I believe (though I'm by no means certain) that we'll all be able to start that process at the same time as the Land Rush Settlements are awarded.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We appreciate that some community members have concerns. We have made our statement. If the developers decide that Golgotha is going against the letter of the rules, then they can tell us. Our communication with them so far shows that that isn’t the case. That Golgotha was accepted into the land rush supports this. If anyone wants to talk further, I am happy to do so on the Pax Gaming forums, but I don’t think that it helps anyone for us to have a back and forth here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And every other country in the game gets to start with one state. Except Pax who has split their vote so they get to start with two states. That's why people are crying foul.He Who Shall Not Be Named,
Sir, if we all lived in the same country. We probably wouldn't live in the same province or state. Each province or state has its own individual needs and wants. Pax is a Country of gamers that is comprised of different states and provinces with their own leaders. We just choose to do it under one roof (much like a country)because we feel safe with our wive's and children playing with the people that apply and successfully get thru their app period. That being said, Golgotha is its own state Sir.
Sincerely, Ponix
All due respect Sir Aeternum and Golgotha were known as separate entities on these forums before they were an alliance <- 2 separate entities working together. That is what part of this game is about. Making alliances and enemies.
Ponix
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Archanjel
Read the official statement.
Then go to the Golgotha: Settlement Charter thread and check the date it was originally posted, and then check the date on the merger into the Pax Gaming Community.
Yep, checked all those. Looks good.
Right up until Feb 22, 2013. Caleth posted on your public forums, "I am in the process of applying and I hope to be a part of Aeternum" when Hobs instructed Caleth to instead vote for Golgotha. ORIGINAL THREAD HERE. Clearly Pax is putting its thumb on the scale for Golgatha. I don't think that's fair. If Golgatha had the votes on its own to merit the #2 spot, I'd have no problems with it. But instead, the Pax community started directing Aeturnum hopefuls to go vote for Golgatha. They knew they already had one spot secured but that wasn't enough so they started shunting votes into Golgatha to ensure themselves a second settlement.
That's the part I have a problem with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have addressed that point. EE votes are free to be placed wherever the owner wishes to place them. We aren't forcing anyone to do anything. If an Aeturnum member chooses not to direct their votes our way, that is their choice. The developers have addressed this point on the forums. The only limit ever given by the developers was that first land rush voters cannot change their vote if they voted for the big three. We are self policing so that that is the case.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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This is what I think the OP was referencing.
The last question we got involves members of a winning Phase I guild who did not vote in the Phase I poll. Technically, these people are free to participate in the Phase II promotion by affiliating themselves with another guild. The temptation to use this exception as a way to create a shadow guild to snag two (or more) spots in the Land Rush will be high, and we strongly urge you not to do so. If you don't plan to play as a member of another guild, we'd ask that you just not participate in Phase II of the land rush. There are so many potential special cases and exceptions within this aspect of the promotion that we can't write a hard & fast rule to cover them all. So we're asking for you to each use your individual discretion and best judgement: If it feels like what you're doing goes against the spirit of the promotion - getting new people interested and excited about Pathfinder Online - we suggest that you opt out of taking part in Phase II.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ArchAnjel...
Am I mistaken in that... TEO and T7V are both trying to get friendlies into positions near their settlements by helping them with votes? I could have sworn I hear that somewhere... Maybe it was on TS. Not with people who have already voted for either, but with new votes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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TEO and T7V are both trying to get friendlies into positions near their settlements by helping them with votes? I could have sworn I hear that somewhere...
Yes, we are! Please see Roseblood Accord.
If you're friendly, and think you can play well with The Empyrean Order, The Seventh Veil, Keepers of the Circle, Dagedai Alliance, and Forgeholm, we encourage you to settle near us in the southeast mountains.
[Edit] We're "helping them with votes" by adding our voices to their recruitment efforts. We're also recruiting new folks to T7V and have made it very clear to each of them that they should not vote for anyone else in the Land Rush. Why can't anyone ever post threads from our forums... *huff*
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is what I think the OP was referencing.
The last question we got involves members of a winning Phase I guild who did not vote in the Phase I poll. Technically, these people are free to participate in the Phase II promotion by affiliating themselves with another guild. The temptation to use this exception as a way to create a shadow guild to snag two (or more) spots in the Land Rush will be high, and we strongly urge you not to do so. If you don't plan to play as a member of another guild, we'd ask that you just not participate in Phase II of the land rush. There are so many potential special cases and exceptions within this aspect of the promotion that we can't write a hard & fast rule to cover them all. So we're asking for you to each use your individual discretion and best judgement: If it feels like what you're doing goes against the spirit of the promotion - getting new people interested and excited about Pathfinder Online - we suggest that you opt out of taking part in Phase II.
I think one strong argument against this quote being relevant is that Pax has emphatically not set up a "shadow guild" with the purpose of snagging another settlement; Golgotha has been set up long ago, and the plan for it to have its own settlement has been there ever since they joined the Xeilean Empire. Therefore I don't think our current situation is covered here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A metagame guild is grabbing two settlements? Well we like 'them' so it is ok, just don't anyone else try it or it would be wrong. /sarcasm
So you all joined Pax but you are not in the same guild? uh huh.
Don't stop at two go for three , I am sure at the center of your plan is domination ,so that will just get you going faster. You are all good people so it is ok.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pax to me just seems like the first nation. Nothing wrong with it. Roseblood will probably be the second. Just my two cents (backs up)
^^^^
They kinda pre-nationed. I don't believe they should be punished for it. Fidelis would have been another matter since that was a clear break off of Pax Aternum. They are not voting settlement for Fidelis.
Golgotha and Pax Gaming is clean.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, I have heard from members that T7V and TEO are sending over votes. Not helping them with recruitment, but send them votes.
Frankly I do not care. If someone did not vote originally to Pax, T7V, or TEO... Its your vote, do what you will.
They can create 5 settlements for all I care. If you have the numbers, do it.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Well, I have heard from members that T7V and TEO are sending over votes. Not helping them with recruitment, but send them votes.
Frankly I do not care. If someone did not vote originally to Pax, T7V, or TEO... Its your vote, do what you will.
They can create 5 settlements for all I care. If you have the numbers, do it.
If you can provide credible evidence that a specific individual who is a member of TSV is voting for a different guild, please PM me. If you don't, kindly refrain from claiming that you do.