Forums » Role Playing

The New Syndicate

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Oct 19, 2005 Doukutsu link
For people joining the Syndicate - just read this first post. The rest is outdated and not worth much reading, although somewhat entertaining.

The Syndicate, the first pirating guild (and perhaps the first guild ever), has been around for a while (almost 3 years now, on and off), and was originally intended to add more challenge and depth to the game.

Here is what has been set up so far. I will update this as we get some new ideas. Please! EVERYONE contribute!
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SYNDICATE CODE OF HONOR
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•• A Syndicate member's conduct should generally promote profit and power of the Syndicate.
(Simply, if you're losing money, change your tactics so that you are making money. This means teaming up with guild members in both offense and defense)

•• A Syndicate member will not hold political favor, nor support the agenda of the UIT, Serco, or Itani, including their subfactioins.
(Basically having a negative rep with the 3 nations)

•• A Syndicate member will live by honor.
(Don't discourage someone from playing VO, and no hatemongering)

•• A Syndicate member's loyalties lie solely with the Syndicate.
(Don't let someone pass just because they're a friend, or go off on your own with disregard for other guild members)

•• Syndicate members are to treat eachother with respect. Constant violation of this code, or violation of any other code will result in expulsion if found guilty after a consensus of the guild.

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**CODE OF CONDUCT**
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- Be a pirate! Yo-ho-ho!

- The usual pirating approach. Hail target, warn them to stop/jettison cargo/pay passage toll, or anything along those lines. But usually, you will just tell pay you a fee or be destroyed. Its up to you whether you bring their hull down to a low percentage before hailing them. When setting up a blockade, have group decide upon a reasonable course of action for the situation, as well as policy for how to handle different types of ships, nations, or other guilds.

- Odia is ours. Increase your faction as much as possible with Corvus and Xang Xi, and you are free to affiliate with other 'grayspace' factions as you see fit. Generally set up operations as close to Odia as possible. Any government ship, group, guild, or faction member who enters Odia and is openly opposed to the Syndicate is to be destroyed upon sight.

- Standard Corvus ship color is grey or black.

- Basically, don't completely ruin anybody's fun. We're here to add a challenge for ourselves and others. Have fun pirating! Its a game. Let other people know about the guild.

- In order to join the guild, a pilot must read, understand, and agree to follow ALL of these rules.
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Its a beginning... there's still some things to set up. WE NEED SUGGESTIONS! If you'd like to add anything (details, ideas on how pirating should go, etc.), post it here!
Oct 19, 2005 Doukutsu link
RULES IN DEBATE:
Basically, these are rules that are just being speculated. Some of them might not be appropriate for the current versions of VO - or may be set in place when VO gains more users.
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1. When you're on your Syndicate character, you shut off channel 100 - maybe we'll have a pirate channel or something (channel 600 for example)? Or just use guild chat. Why? Chatting with your prey/pirating victims on channel 100 can be quite bothersome. I think it helps cut down on kiddiness if we generally don't talk with most outsiders. It makes it feel a whole lot more 'piratey.' It's not that I don't like channel 100 (sometimes it gets reduntantly foolish), but there's a lot of other gameplay factors.

2. To PvP, or not to PvP?? I think it would be fine to duel in Sedina B-8, as long as it doesn't get in the way of pirating. But for times when there's really nothing else to do, I say why not? It's a great way to rack up the pvp kills and great practice.

3. Along the same lines as #2... there's a lot of other things to participate in out there... player-made events, leviathan hunts, etc. I would suggest that we don't participate in these (unless its a guild-related event), to keep ourselves separate from other factions. We're talking real pirates here! The only exception would be if one of the governments/guilds payed us a very large amount of money (maybe - this is also up for debate). But, of course, if it were a pirate-related event... we'd be all over that.

Let me know what you think on these issues.
Oct 19, 2005 Forum Moderator link
This really does belong in the RP forum. People who are interested in such things will read it there. Plenty of people read the RP forums.
Oct 19, 2005 who? me? link
no one reads the RP forum
Oct 19, 2005 moldyman link
You read em =P

<<I dub who? me? a nobody>>
Oct 21, 2005 Doukutsu link
Ok, so we were debating the idea of having all guild members turning off ch 100 ingame... The cons - people like to talk, pirates included... and sometimes people will give away their positions on ch100. The pros - no more childish arguments, much more realistic feel, you don't have to hear your victims complain, the Syndicate becomes a lot more dark, mysterious, and menacing, n stuff... and it separates us from the rest of the group as pirates. Most people will also fail to realize that we are online, thus giving us the "element of surprise."

Since sometimes people will give some hints as to where they are trading on ch 100... we came up with two ideas - just have one guild member that is online monitoring ch 100... or, we have an outside informant that would tell us any relevant information that is 'broadcast' there.

So unless we get some objections, I'm going to go ahead and add that on to the rules above.

Also, I found a very interesting piece of story about the Syndicate from the dev's wiki page:
http://design.vendetta-online.com/wiki/index.php?title=Organizations#Corvus_Prime
Oct 21, 2005 mcduff link
Personally I think it's a great idea to make a more orginized and secretive pirate guild. Coming from sombody who's main character is mostley a peacefull trader that should mean something. It's gotten so easy to run cargo through greyspace that I've stopped doing it. That being said I have a suggestion.

Try to remember who you pirate and how often. After you pirate a givin trader a few times let him go once so as not to get the traders so fed up with the piracy that they log because they can't get _any_ cargo to station. (you can't steal cargo from traders who aren't online).
Oct 25, 2005 Person link
Count me in! When do we create it? Can I be a council member?

-Calder
Oct 25, 2005 johnhawl218 link
a "play nice" policy in a pirate guild is obserd, as are codes of conduct, your f'ing pirates, not privateers!!!
Oct 25, 2005 Doukutsu link
The definition of a pirate and privateer are not contradictory. It is possible (and quite plausible) for a pirate to fall under the definition of a privateer.
People have all kinds of definitions of a pirate. Basically, all Webster says is that "pirating" involves a ship, and someone who thinks your hard-earned possessions are his. Everything else about pirating is up for creativity.

McDuff- yeah, that was something that falls under the 3rd code of honor. We don't ceaselessly hound any single person. However, there are certain areas and certain times that we will pirate indiscriminately - even if that person keeps coming back for more. The reason being that good trading routes aren't valued highly enough. Its the step-down principle. Like any game, if one task is too difficult at the time, then you go somewhere else a little less difficult. It's not like just because some pirates are blockading a wormhole, that you have to give up trading altogether. The universe is freakin' huge. There's plenty of other places to go trading. Maybe not as profitable, but certainly less dangerous. But yes, we won't constantly hunt down just one person, unless that person happens to come to us. Anything else would be considered grief-play.

Person - It will get created as soon as certain issues get cleared up, such as the ones in this thread. The current Syn guild also needs to be restructured. I need to talk to Syn_n00b about that first... Then after everyone is recruited, we will vote on a heirarchical system (heirarchical?).
Oct 25, 2005 Lord Q link
johnhawl218,

actualy pirats did ocasinaly have codes of conduct, and in truth some of therm were fairly democratic in structure. In truth a Privateer is just a pirat with a letter from a government giving them permission to pirat their enemys in war.
Oct 26, 2005 who? me? link
i vote that i dont go on the council!
Oct 27, 2005 jexkerome link
I second who? me?'s vote.
Oct 27, 2005 Will Roberts link
First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement, so I must do nothin'. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the Pirate's Code to apply, and you're not. And thirdly, the Code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.
Oct 27, 2005 Doukutsu link
I love that movie. Anyways... <thread starts to drift towards off-topic forums>
Nov 28, 2005 Doukutsu link
Whipped together a logo for the guild...

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d44/Doukutsu/Vendetta%20Online/Syndicate.jpg

Dunno if that's what it will end up being... but probably something like that. By the way, does anybody know the code to place the image directly on this page?
Nov 28, 2005 Celkan link
Nov 28, 2005 Dr. Lecter link
So... the crow vulture?
Nov 29, 2005 Dark Knight link
Here, I made a recruitment poster for the guild. Hope ya like it!

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a363/Nikana_Olos/SYNPoster.jpg

Thanks to Lecter for the comment that inspired this piece.
Nov 29, 2005 Harry Seldon link
Had me laughing... :D