Core Values

Thank you for considering Rising Phoenix (RP) as your family.

Rising Phoenix is a very old gaming organization that is rooted in the late 1970's with branches stretching into many types of games and many periods of time and we all hope that you find a great home with us here.

RP has people with many different play styles and goals. The goals of leadership are to serve the family by constantly challenging them and empowering them to play the game they want to play. In a family with so many diverse play styles, it can be difficult to achieve this but we offset that difficulty with a strong set of core values and a solid officer team that is sworn to serving the family.

RP is somewhat of a role-playing family online. We avoid Olde English for the most part but most of us do love to immerse ourselves in the role that we choose. It is never overdone or self-serving but can be unusual. Give it a try though as there is no requirement for role-playing as long as you are having fun and enjoying the story.

Background on the Founders:

Our House Leader known by many names: Marty (real life) Karn, Terran, Domina (message board handle) is the original founder and longtime guild master for many of our online and offline games. He guides the direction of all guilds in all games and ensures that our core values are understood and obeyed by all of our family. Although that seems a bit strong, our core values are all really common sense and based upon supporting each other and our mutual quest for great entertainment online.

He is also the most accomplished gamer that I have ever had the honor of knowing. He is a born winner and a great role-player. Mastering skill-ladders in many games and renowned by many names, he remains humble yet determined to win and have fun with this great family doing it. His underlying motivation is quite simple ... he has more fun and greater rewards when the entire family is having fun and winning the encounters and challenges that they choose. That is our goal and our creed. Regardless of position, rank, or title, every person in RP is responsible for bringing fun and success to the rest of the family. It is, quite simply, what we do best. He is referred to as the Mind.

Along with Domina, there is Jacque (real name and wife of Marty) Unitsi (message board name) recognized as founders of this great House. Their constant love of gaming and for this great family is apparent in all things that they undertake. Unitsi is one of our webmasters, loves to help in-game, does most of the administration for all RP guilds, and even ran a successful store in New Orleans that catered to, you guessed it, gaming. She is the sweetest and most giving person that I have ever met and she only cusses when she fails at combining the parts for the guildhall ... well ... that's a long story. She is referred to as the Heart.

The hierarchy will be as follows:

What role does a guild master have?

The guild master also filters requests for changes to the creators. Rather than have every member of a guild bombard us with request, we would prefer that all requests for changes go to the guild master, who can filter them and send them to us in a batch.

Being around to help your guild members is very important. If you are not able to play several hours a week then you probably aren't the best person to become a guild master.

You should also be the helpful type, since you are going to get lots of questions from your guild members. If you want to play the game and are too busy to help others you may want to reconsider.

You have to have advanced sufficiently in your guild that you have access to every command that is available to the guild. Generally, guild masters are addicts who have a good understanding of the game.

The GM is a voluntary position. Volunteers must consult with the other Officers before being assigned to the role of GM and all volunteers must have served as an officer of a game for at least one full year. This is not mandatory but recommended.

The GM is required to:
- commit to no less than 12 hours of in-game activity each week in primary character
- commit to no less than 6 months of service
- attend and chair all officer meetings
- stand responsible for all actions of the family and consult with the Officers on all issues that pertain to our charter and values
- report to the family on our current status and our goals
- be very active on the message boards

The Assistant Guildmaster (AGM):

The AGM is a voluntary position. The GM has the power to pick his cabinet underneath him that he will look to for guidance.

The AGM is required to:
- commit to no less than 12 hours of in-game activity each week
- attend all officer meetings
- act as GM in the absence of the GM
- assist the GM and officer staff where possible
- be active on the message boards

Officer Staff

The Officer is a voluntary position. Volunteers must consult with the GM, and the AGM before being assigned to the role of officer and all volunteers must have been a family member for at least one full year.

RP greatly desires our officers to be the voice of the family in all things and therefore has some obvious requirements that are placed upon this voluntary position.

The Officer is required to:
- commit to being active in their main character and being visible to the family
- attend all officer meetings
- act as the voice of the family without regard for their personal opinions
- resolve community conflicts or escalate them to the AGM or GM
- be very active on the message boards

Members

Every Member is required to:
- be active on the message boards
- monitor and use the in game chat channel RP
- be accountable to the family as a whole in their actions within the community
- resolve community conflicts or escalate them to an Officer, the AGM or GM
- know our charter and conduct themselves with honor and respect in all things - role-play it if you have to (hehe) - participate and come to the aid of others
- step up and lead or step back and support - but never impede within the game (debate on the boards is encouraged though)

It is enormously important to understand here that many of our long time and even new members have probably been Guild masters before or may be so right now in another game. Please show respect to each other and try to learn when you can and lead when you like. Your ideas and thoughts are instrumental to the yin-yang philosophy of this family and debate is our fuel. But please understand that pure democracy can not achieve more than mediocrity. So few things are ever really voted upon. Therefore we encourage everyone, regardless of their past or present positions in any game, to create and lead events of their choice and really fire up the family when possible. We all benefit when we all work at it.

We really only have a few small rules.

Our new members must, at a minimum, understand these core rules before we tag them. All of us have deguilded members before. Indeed, at this stage of MMORPGs, I am certain that many of us have served as GM and have had to deguild others. I am not numb to it but I don't worry about it that much these days. It simply comes with the territory. Best practice demands, however, that we give our new members the information they need to decide upon accepting our tag first.

The method is quite simple. If you meet someone online that you like, invite them to the guild and have them log in here and read our charter and this post. If they are still interested, we will tag them into our family. Similarly, if someone asks you how to join just point them to the website here and tell them to read our rules. If they are still interested, have them contact you or any Officer so we can invite them them.

Grouping

If someone is LFG in an area near you, just invite them to your group. If they are putzes or causing a problem, just boot them. Tell them that you are sorry but you don't choose to play the same way they do. Then move on. Involving the community as often as we can is the best way to effect change in the game over a period of time too. Most worlds offer compelling reasons to group up often.

We generally do not ask anyone to disband a group or boot non-members from a group to make room for family members. That is, however, up to the group leader and RP will support your decision either way. We simply do not wish to make this some sort of policy.

Looting

Additionally, we will have some open areas of some sort that encourage all of us to contribute loot and take it at will. These areas may be guild vault type containers or guild mule characters. In any case, RP generally leaves loot up to the family and tries to not place any policies or committees on such things.

Hallmark and Epic Content

For the most part, the GM and Raid master(s) will run periodic raids or hallmark/epic quests for certain classes. All guild members are highly encouraged to attend these and help out. Not quite mandatory, your attendance is most definitely needed and appreciated. Remember that your turn to benefit will come soon and you'll want others to be there - try to be there for them too.

Power Leveling

Asking for someone to PL you will really get the GM and Staff boiling and apt to detag you and ignore you in one fell macro swoop. Especially in guild chat. An experience point over time is the formula for leveling quickly and we will be happy to explain this process on the boards. It's really that simple and not an area with much room for debate.

Group up. Don't ask "what's going on today" - instead, start a group and get to killing. Killing greenies while waiting for a group is far more productive than sitting and whining about not having one. Start one up and kill greenies until everyone is ready to move on.

Powerlevelling is a word created by really bad players to justify their need to hide just how badly they suck at gaming. Get an efficient group killing hoards of appropriate mobs and you will level faster than you can imagine. If you log in, ask what's going on instead of helping to create excitement and then log off all pissed, and then you are not leveling and will hate us and the game in a very short period of time. Take charge of your character and care for it. Create excitement and build the guild. You will be amazed at how many times you are rewarded for this.

Incidentally, don't be surprised if someone sends you a tell and tells you to get your butt to place xxxx. Many of us will do that on occasion with family that we never get to play with or that are leveling kind of slow. You're here because we wanted you to be here. If you avoid us, we will find you and make you group with us - muhahahaha.

You see, RP is really very good at MMORPGs and especially good at these type games and massive raids. We want you to be a part of that and not feel like you need to ask for help. Just show up in one of our groups and go nuts. Just respect the group leader and have fun.

Did we mention that grouping up into small, efficient groups that are targeting appropriate mobs and experiencing very little or no downtime would be the fastest way to level? .... maybe we did .... PL = exp /time .... PLing does not equal exp per kill - far too risky and always too much downtime. You will always do better with PL = exp / time.

Everyone is Empowered to Lead, to Fail, and to Grow

We were raiding the efreeti room with 2 or 3 groups of level 30ish toons - all RP. Bearsoul was playing a druid and he asked what he should do. The above quote was told to him. Sure it sounded harsh because we simply didn't have time for feel-good speeches in guild chat while clearing that last ramp - hehe. But he did as he was told and learned a lot. As a result, he led many more raids there and elsewhere with great success and only one or two wipes (caused by people that did not follow that advice mind you - haha).

Among the family and friends that we have, it should be ok to talk like this to one another. However, the written word can often magnify your feelings instead of communicating the true feelings and tone of the speaker. Regardless of how it comes out, it is spoken because we all do care and want you and the team to succeed. That's really all there is to it. Don't sweat the light stuff and don't take everything too seriously. We are your friends.

Many times in everyone's experience, you will have the opportunity to lead a raid or some major hunt. Indeed, RP never leads YOUR epic quests - you do that. I think it makes it more meaningful too.

So if you are not leading, let the leader concentrate and do his/her work. If the leader is successful, then the team obviously won. If the leader is unsuccessful, then debrief it in the boards here and point out the problems so the next run is successful. No matter how you shake it, you can have a win/win situation every time. But it starts with being quiet and learning. (on the big stuff of course - normally the chat window scrolls by so fast that we don't even see it - haha).

Summary

2 - YOU are the most important part of RP. The officers all serve this family in a way that keeps things honorable and organized. If you wish to serve in the capacity of officer, simply ask our House Leader and explain what it is that you can more easily do as an officer than as a member. We only ask that members wait about a year before volunteering to serve in this way.

Once again, thank you for being a part of, or considering the opportunity to join, one of the oldest and most renowned families in gaming history. We are successful because successful people are attracted to us - not uber leet wannabees - hehe. In fact, you may often see us using our real first names. We are family - we are proud of it - and we are damned good.