Where do you see Stonewall going?

I really like this discussion. I've belonged to a few guilds and player groups on other MMO's but none were ever like this. None were dedictated, supportive, and easy going all at the same time. And of course none where comprised of (almost completely) gay trekkies; a very rare breed (or so I thought lol).

I had to stop and think for a second about how I actaully came upon SWF because I couldn't remember at first. I've been a part of it for so long (at least 9 months before the game actually launched). I know I didn't google "gay star trek online guild" cheifly because I really didn't think there actually were a lot of other gay Trekies. I think I was looking for a definitive map of the star trek galaxy that was going to be in the game. I found a pretty good looking map in the picture search results and when I clicked on the link it took me to a SWF forum post by you, Nick :). I read and posted on a few more of the topics and I was hooked.

I'm feel very lucky to have found this community and look forward to continuing to be an active part in it. I feel that our next step should be to build a good group on SWTOR and see how that goes before heavily committing any upcoming MMO's. With regards to pre-existing MMO I'm wondering if anyone has thought about putting an offical presence on World of Warcraft or City of Heroes? Those are the three MMO's I play and I'm gonna have to really work on fitting SWTOR in but I'm totally going to. As for regional events and IRL's I'm totally down, SF pride sounds fun and @ Brandon; I would love to assist with any CA or Las Vegas events. We still gotta go to Jeri Ryan's Husbands's restaurant! lol.

I like Stonewall being a "multi-verse" kind of hub for members. It offers members a set of friendly faces wherever they go. I also like that Nick has stated it won't necessarily be the same officers, even though affiliated. Not that I have a problem with the officers (I don't!), but it is exhausting and draining managing one guild in one game.. let alone multiple games!

I like the sense of community in Stonewall these days. I hope that remains consistent in STO, and spreads constructively to other guilds in other games

Where do I see the Fleet going? Its taken me some time to sit down and think exactly what I think and what I hope.

I for one, am very excited to see this question being asked so openly! I think it’s the way the best guilds need to operate, the ones that last the longest would include involvement from all its members.

Anyway, on to what I think; the MMO developers seem to be taking things in small steps these days with an ever changing MMO marketplace. Its also the way I work, while it is good to have aspirations of where we want to be, I don’t want to get too distracted in that to not give the here and now the best of my efforts and make it the best experience possible. As I have read, people are talking about expanding to MMOs. Not everyone plays just one game, there may be a few, especially with some going free to play. I think it would be great to give a home to our current members in other games, but only if they prove popular enough with our fleet to justify putting in the time and effort to expand. As it has been mentioned, something comes out, something goes free to play and people go “oh shiney” and flock to it, to soon get bored and abandon it.

I see right now our focus being STO with a keen eye on the horizon to Star Wars. However, something has come our way which has a few people interested! Champions Online. While I am reluctant to say, lets go jump on the band wagon, it would be interesting to see who would go over to play that game. I know I will probably using it as my STO backup or when I need a little break.

I believe we have a great community here already and I wouldn’t like to see us expand too far, too fast to the point of fracture. There could be such a thing as too big a guild! Unless its micromanaged, but thinking of that is starting to give me a headache already.

Back to the here and now, the Fleet is my main focus, I won’t be going anywhere soon and hope to provide the best experience for all our other and future members. I have said it before and will say it again, we have the best people in the game right here. I want to look at improving and refining what we do and can do before we think about expansion. For example, I am looking at the Academy right now and want to make it the best for the fleet as I know everyone else is with their own sections (which is why its taking some time…. That and my total lack of computer skills).

We have a great future ahead of us though, and I just think we should take it a step at a time… enjoy the journey.

Quote by Jasonmillard

I really like this discussion. I've belonged to a few guilds and player groups on other MMO's but none were ever like this. None were dedictated, supportive, and easy going all at the same time. And of course none where comprised of (almost completely) gay trekkies; a very rare breed (or so I thought lol).

I had to stop and think for a second about how I actaully came upon SWF because I couldn't remember at first. I've been a part of it for so long (at least 9 months before the game actually launched). I know I didn't google "gay star trek online guild" cheifly because I really didn't think there actually were a lot of other gay Trekies. I think I was looking for a definitive map of the star trek galaxy that was going to be in the game. I found a pretty good looking map in the picture search results and when I clicked on the link it took me to a SWF forum post by you, Nick :). I read and posted on a few more of the topics and I was hooked.

I'm feel very lucky to have found this community and look forward to continuing to be an active part in it. I feel that our next step should be to build a good group on SWTOR and see how that goes before heavily committing any upcoming MMO's. With regards to pre-existing MMO I'm wondering if anyone has thought about putting an offical presence on World of Warcraft or City of Heroes? Those are the three MMO's I play and I'm gonna have to really work on fitting SWTOR in but I'm totally going to. As for regional events and IRL's I'm totally down, SF pride sounds fun and @ Brandon; I would love to assist with any CA or Las Vegas events. We still gotta go to Jeri Ryan's Husbands's restaurant! lol.

Oh Jason, I'm so glad you found us too! So few have been around for as long as you have and you have been here for sometime! As can be seen by the "Order of the Founder" ribbon below your avatar. You've been here since the very beginning and it's great have your opinion on how the fleet should proceed farther! I'm very glad that you found my post. God knows what it was about though cause I can't for the life of me remember posting an in-game map.

Going into SWTOR should defiantly be our first milestone. We should proceed carefully, watching how things work, what problems we face and once the guild is stable, take a long time to review how things went, what the difficult parts were and how to streamline the process in the future.

As for World of Warcraft, I believe there is a rather large GLBT guild in it alread. I've been working under a policy of non-competition when it comes to MMOs. If a GLBT guild already exists in a MMO, instead of starting a new competeing guild, we will direct our members to it and help strengthen it. Right now for WoW, that's The Stonewall Family, who we had some limited contact with when STO launched. As for CoH, I thought there were several GLBT guilds in it and isn't the game on its slow march to death?

I like Stonewall being a "multi-verse" kind of hub for members. It offers members a set of friendly faces wherever they go. I also like that Nick has stated it won't necessarily be the same officers, even though affiliated. Not that I have a problem with the officers (I don't!), but it is exhausting and draining managing one guild in one game.. let alone multiple games!

I like the sense of community in Stonewall these days. I hope that remains consistent in STO, and spreads constructively to other guilds in other games

Quote by sparkz88

Where do I see the Fleet going? Its taken me some time to sit down and think exactly what I think and what I hope.

I for one, am very excited to see this question being asked so openly! I think it’s the way the best guilds need to operate, the ones that last the longest would include involvement from all its members.

Anyway, on to what I think; the MMO developers seem to be taking things in small steps these days with an ever changing MMO marketplace. Its also the way I work, while it is good to have aspirations of where we want to be, I don’t want to get too distracted in that to not give the here and now the best of my efforts and make it the best experience possible. As I have read, people are talking about expanding to MMOs. Not everyone plays just one game, there may be a few, especially with some going free to play. I think it would be great to give a home to our current members in other games, but only if they prove popular enough with our fleet to justify putting in the time and effort to expand. As it has been mentioned, something comes out, something goes free to play and people go “oh shiney” and flock to it, to soon get bored and abandon it.

I see right now our focus being STO with a keen eye on the horizon to Star Wars. However, something has come our way which has a few people interested! Champions Online. While I am reluctant to say, lets go jump on the band wagon, it would be interesting to see who would go over to play that game. I know I will probably using it as my STO backup or when I need a little break.

I believe we have a great community here already and I wouldn’t like to see us expand too far, too fast to the point of fracture. There could be such a thing as too big a guild! Unless its micromanaged, but thinking of that is starting to give me a headache already.

Back to the here and now, the Fleet is my main focus, I won’t be going anywhere soon and hope to provide the best experience for all our other and future members. I have said it before and will say it again, we have the best people in the game right here. I want to look at improving and refining what we do and can do before we think about expansion. For example, I am looking at the Academy right now and want to make it the best for the fleet as I know everyone else is with their own sections (which is why its taking some time…. That and my total lack of computer skills).

We have a great future ahead of us though, and I just think we should take it a step at a time… enjoy the journey.

Absolutely. We need to be very cautious as we move into a multi-guild structure. We need to take our time and think about each step as we take it and that's one of the main reasons I wanted to make this thread. A lot of guilds have attempted this in the past and it has failed; I don't want the same thing to happen here. We need to plan far ahead in advanced, create a detailed roadmap, and continually revise it until its just right.

As well, we still have lots of work to do with Stonewall Fleet. We, by no means, have reach our potential and there's plenty of work to be done. Just 5 days ago, we completely relaunched our Crafting Corp ran Stonewall Fleet Store and as you put so well, we're currently developing our own Academy! There's definitely progress being made here.

We definitely can become too big. Our size, or rather the numbers in our membership, really has no bearing on why we should go into other MMOs. We're doing this so our friends don't feel the need to leave when they're done playing STO or when they want to play a different game. As the saying goes, size doesn't matter. What does matters is our wonderful community, providing a safe atmosphere and enjoy which ever game we're in.

In some of the replies, I get a sense of worry about expanding into other games.

Could someone elaborate on what their worries are? Also, what would help calm those worries?

Personally i have no worries about expanding as long as the Fleet leadership does not try to do to much individually, i.e. trying to wear to many hats.

By the By, speaking of expanding, i hope we have some plan for what to do when(if?) more factions are added to STO. Most of my feds will hit the grinder as soon as the Romulan(i hope) faction comes online.

Quote by Seannewboy

Personally i have no worries about expanding as long as the Fleet leadership does not try to do to much individually, i.e. trying to wear to many hats.

By the By, speaking of expanding, i hope we have some plan for what to do when(if?) more factions are added to STO. Most of my feds will hit the grinder as soon as the Romulan(i hope) faction comes online.

I know there's a huge contingent of Romulans in our fleet (dirty little spies each and everyone of you!), I believe even bigger than those that want to play Klingon. We'll definitely have our own guild on the Romulan side, but I have no idea what to name it (what is "stonewall" in Romulan?). The more people we have playing it, the more resources we will dedicate to that faction (god, I sound like Cryptic.).

As Cryptic roles out more content for the Klingon faction, I would really like to strengthen our House as well. I know there's a good number of people who try very hard to run STFs as Klingons and have a lot of trouble getting teams together due to the low number of RA5s and above and differences in time zones. The Sorties are really find, imho, and more people need to give Klingon a chance again. It's changed quite a bit.

How would you guys like to see us do when the Romulan faction comes out? Any ideas on how to get more people interested in playing Klingon? What would you guys think about faction specific officers?

Expanding in to other games is a good idea but I will be staying with STO my self
This website as a central hub is a great idea though.
I played Shh(WOW) for 6 years i dip in on occation still but I quit for STO the mmo I have always wanted.
I find life is to busy for 2 mmos and I am in for the long haul with this game.
Dont let that stop you though :D I am sure you are up to it :D

Quote by NicholasJohn16

(what is "stonewall" in Romulan?).
How would you guys like to see us do when the Romulan faction comes out? Any ideas on how to get more people interested in playing Klingon? What would you guys think about faction specific officers?

Right now i have an ra4-5 in klink a tac, and starting on a eng who has only done Vault.

Stone Wall and Fleet in romulan words (not script, i can work that out, but havent yet) is Jorreh Honn Galae, not sure what the correct order would be.

I like the idea of expanding slowly. I for one may be enticed to come back and play TOR with my friends here.

I'd caution against starting a guild in a game because Cryptic made it...specifically for that reason. While I love STO and know that the developers have worked hard to do right by it, their games have a pattern of having the same issue...great titles/concepts, and they drop the ball (or launch too early), which ends in losing a lot of players after the first few months...so I'd say keep an eye out on their games, but be cautious about putting a lot of time and effort into starting a guild there if no one is going to be playing it in 3 months.

Also, once you expand to new games, you'll probably see people migrate away from some and into others, and the concentration of people may not be in the game you expect (just a heads up from my previous guild experiences).

But, by and large, this is a great group of people, and I'd say if a few members are interested in going to another game (that the whole fleet isn't interested in pursuing), maybe let them start a guild there and make an alliance with them (list them on the forums, etc). That way, they can still play with their stonewall friends in other games.

As a very new member I would love to see expanding into other games, but I agree that going slow is the best option if we do. I mean, look at the flop of FF14 :( Plus there seems to be a new MMO every, what, 3 months? I mean Rift is coming out in early March lol