Official New Sith Order Press Conference

[kevin32891]

Which does nothing actually answer his question, but I'm sure insulting him will make him feel better about it.

He didn't ask a question all Mechanus did was make a statement.

[ChairmanHal]

When have we not offered equal terms to anyone? Again we are friendly and hospitable to ALL brown alliances; regardless of whether they are shown to us in return.

So friendly and so hospitable that you send their individual members recruiting messages...when called on it, you reassign the recruiter to another job of equal status and then tell the offended alliance that the recruiter had been "demoted".

Indeed, your recruiting practices are more infamous than almost everything else about your alliance. Yet your alliance NS is in steady decline and your membership number have simply seen better days.

To what extent do you attribute this decline to problems recruiting nations to Brown (thus forcing you into aggressive recruiting tactics) and to what extent do you attribute it to the public perception of NSO as an alliance? To what extent have you had to adjust your recruiting tactics to conform to the "norms" of Planet Bob?

[Ivan Moldavi]

So friendly and so hospitable that you send their individual members recruiting messages...when called on it, you reassign the recruiter to another job of equal status and then tell the offended alliance that the recruiter had been "demoted".

Indeed, your recruiting practices are more infamous than almost everything else about your alliance. Yet your alliance NS is in steady decline and your membership number have simply seen better days.

To what extent do you attribute this decline to problems recruiting nations to Brown (thus forcing you into aggressive recruiting tactics) and to what extent do you attribute it to the public perception of NSO as an alliance? To what extent have you had to adjust your recruiting tactics to conform to the "norms" of Planet Bob?

I believe moving Heggo out of recruitment was a mistake. I don't recall ever telling 57th or anyone else that he was demoted. If others did then they did so in error. He was reassigned.

That being said, you are correct, our recruitment efforts have been dismal of late. That has as much to do with our lack of active presence here on the OWF as it does with any difficulties concerning the Brown sphere, which admittedly are not few. I wanted a challenge when I selected the Brown sphere and have received it. I do not believe it will be the death of us yet, however.

As far as our public perception as an alliance, I believe we are generally considered to be a political player, even if we are not necessarily a strong military one. We maintain few alliances but have various connections in several arenas that make us influential to no small degree regardless of our member count. The NSO was never created to be or intended to be a bloated mass nation alliance. While it would be great to have hundreds of nations I am a realist. We started on Brown, we selected a very limited theme concept that will not appeal to everyone and we popped up amid dozens of others in a world dominated by alliances and cultures that have been around for years. I would say the fact that we draw attention at all speaks to how the public sees us as an alliance. If we were actually as insignificant as some detractors wish us to be and portray us as then our postings wouldn't get so much scrutiny to begin with.

[willirica]

So friendly and so hospitable that you send their individual members recruiting messages...when called on it, you reassign the recruiter to another job of equal status and then tell the offended alliance that the recruiter had been "demoted".

Indeed, your recruiting practices are more infamous than almost everything else about your alliance. Yet your alliance NS is in steady decline and your membership number have simply seen better days.

To what extent do you attribute this decline to problems recruiting nations to Brown (thus forcing you into aggressive recruiting tactics) and to what extent do you attribute it to the public perception of NSO as an alliance? To what extent have you had to adjust your recruiting tactics to conform to the "norms" of Planet Bob?

Our membership is only down due to us kicking ghosts off the AA; applications are at their highest since April. As Moldavi states above, August and September were not strong recruiting months for us, however we have just finished some government reshuffling and adjustments to both our forums and our alliance processes. Bringing people to brown has never been an issue since we only require small nations to switch teams ( as is the case with most alliances). Our public perception has in fact been our biggest recruiting tool; but recently we have learned that we cannot rely on that to carry us alone , especially when our OWF presence is diminished, and have committed to more conventional methods of nation and player development, which provide more consistent results, through the re-creation of the Internal Affairs council; headed by Sith Master Krunk. He has done great work so far and we look forward to the continued results that he and the IA council produces.

Edited October 14, 2009 by willirica

[Starcraftmazter]

No it was the answer you were looking for, not the right answer.

Or maybe....it was both?

Either way, given it was the only answer given, I am forced to assume it is correct. If you want to provide a different answer, which does not involve you deflecting from the matter at hand, nor making hypocritical accusations, I invite you to do so.

[Ivan Moldavi]

Or maybe....it was both?

Either way, given it was the only answer given, I am forced to assume it is correct. If you want to provide a different answer, which does not involve you deflecting from the matter at hand, nor making hypocritical accusations, I invite you to do so.

No, it was the correct answer. I would be failing my alliance if I didn't seek to advance my member nations through whatever means necessary.

[Starcraftmazter]

No, it was the correct answer. I would be failing my alliance if I didn't seek to advance my member nations through whatever means necessary.

Do you realise that this way of thinking - doing whatever it takes to get on top - has grown obsolete in CN? Why do you think your alliance, practising old ideologies in a new world, will be successful?

[Wad of Lint]

I mean, that sounds a lot like exclusion to me. We can sign up but can't use anything? That's like getting the keys to a car but can't sit in it, drive it, turn on the radio, etc. And let's not even delve into the whole '57th was mean to NSO since the beginning' because we all have different takes on this and apparently not everyone sees this as truth.

Bad analogy. The circles are built based on the nations that sign up in a database. Whether or not you have a trade representative does not affect the ability of your members to enter into circles.

But Willirica is right, before we bring anyone directly into a project in which we are heavily invested, we want to ensure that individual or entity has both the ability to act respectfully towards the others and that a certain level of trust exists.

[Ivan Moldavi]

Do you realise that this way of thinking - doing whatever it takes to get on top - has grown obsolete in CN? Why do you think your alliance, practising old ideologies in a new world, will be successful?

If I had said "I will do anything to get to the top" then you would have a point, but that is not what I stated. I stated that I will advance my membership through whatever means necessary. In some circumstances that will mean using the "obsolete" conventions of the past and in others it will mean playing nice. That isn't the same thing as saying I will bend over and take it from any jackass on the boards that thinks everyone should play nice all the time and be friends.

[Daikos]

That being said, you are correct, our recruitment efforts have been dismal of late. That has as much to do with our lack of active presence here on the OWF as it does with any difficulties concerning the Brown sphere, which admittedly are not few. I wanted a challenge when I selected the Brown sphere and have received it. I do not believe it will be the death of us yet, however.

Do you honestly think that your recruitment issues are because of a lack of active presence on the OWF? I'd say NSO is within the top 5 most vocal alliances on the OWF forum. I think I'd be hard pressed to find a thread on the OWF that hasn't had some degree of NSO involvement in it. Or do you mean that you don't have many official announcements on the forums? Cause I think you are all still in the running for one of the alliances with the most frequent announcements.

Perhaps your recruitment issues are from all of this OWF activity?

Just a thought.

[Ivan Moldavi]

Do you honestly think that your recruitment issues are because of a lack of active presence on the OWF? I'd say NSO is within the top 5 most vocal alliances on the OWF forum. I think I'd be hard pressed to find a thread on the OWF that hasn't had some degree of NSO involvement in it. Or do you mean that you don't have many official announcements on the forums? Cause I think you are all still in the running for one of the alliances with the most frequent announcements.

Perhaps your recruitment issues are from all of this OWF activity?

Just a thought.

I haven't made an announcement on the boards since the first of September until last night. Where are all these announcements?

EDIT: I went to check. Since June I have made three public decrees and the same number of other announcements. So six topics in 4.5 months makes us one of the most frequent announcers? I find that a bit hard to believe. Maybe you have us confused with someone else?

Edited October 14, 2009 by Ivan Moldavi

[Corinan]

I haven't made an announcement on the boards since the first of September until last night. Where are all these announcements?

EDIT: I went to check. Since June I have made three public decrees and the same number of other announcements. So six topics in 4.5 months makes us one of the most frequent announcers? I find that a bit hard to believe. Maybe you have us confused with someone else?

I think the issue is that Dark Fist is so obsessed with us that every topic on the OWF looks like a New Sith Order topic to them.

[Heft]

Do you honestly think that your recruitment issues are because of a lack of active presence on the OWF? I'd say NSO is within the top 5 most vocal alliances on the OWF forum. I think I'd be hard pressed to find a thread on the OWF that hasn't had some degree of NSO involvement in it. Or do you mean that you don't have many official announcements on the forums? Cause I think you are all still in the running for one of the alliances with the most frequent announcements.

Perhaps your recruitment issues are from all of this OWF activity?

Just a thought.

We really haven't been all that active, especially in any official capacity, for over a month on these forums. While that wouldn't be the only reason for our recruitment slump (which, as willirica mentioned, is really more or less ending by now) it is fair to say that our diminished presence on these boards, while having a positive effect on some of our dealings with other alliances, had a negative effect on our membership growth.

edit: forgot to mention: The perception that we are still highly vocal, or have been up until this thread, owes more to the higher scrutiny we receive when we do post. Our posts just tend to have a higher impact than most others because of who we are, so even if we aren't posting anymore than anyone else, people seem to think we are, because people actually pay attention when we talk.

Edited October 14, 2009 by Heft

[ChairmanHal]

Our membership is only down due to us kicking ghosts off the AA;

For the last month? Nice try.

No, recruiting on/to Brown is absolutely difficult. I know because I used to run an alliance there. Image of the team color aside, you are competing with GATO for what new nations that do stumble in. I wish there had been a magic formula for recruiting on Brown, but if there is, I never found it.

As far as our public perception as an alliance, I believe we are generally considered to be a political player, even if we are not necessarily a strong military one. We maintain few alliances but have various connections in several arenas that make us influential to no small degree regardless of our member count. The NSO was never created to be or intended to be a bloated mass nation alliance. While it would be great to have hundreds of nations I am a realist. We started on Brown, we selected a very limited theme concept that will not appeal to everyone and we popped up amid dozens of others in a world dominated by alliances and cultures that have been around for years. I would say the fact that we draw attention at all speaks to how the public sees us as an alliance. If we were actually as insignificant as some detractors wish us to be and portray us as then our postings wouldn't get so much scrutiny to begin with.

Rings true, and I would hardly call NSO 'insignificant'. That you have made Brown matter in a way that original Browncoats and the Independent Faction Movement could not (or GATO...ever) is a tribute to you personally and to your followers.

If you have an "image" problem at all, it is that you step out the door as the guys in the black hat and your occasional missteps--according to the "standards of proper behavior"--tend to increase the loathe factor.

Then there is Frostbite. Barely touched by the Karma War in relation to other blocs, it seemed position to be a threat to both Citadel and C&G at various times and took fire from both in the OWRP as a result. At this stage however I'm not sure that the threat posed by Frostbite is necessarily genuine anymore (if it ever truly was).

While it would of course not be prudent to comment on any ongoing secret negotiations that may be taking place, but would it be fair to say that Frostbite has reached a point where it is boxed in by the "Karma" faction (for the purposes of discussion, Citadel, C&G, Superfriends) and that its prospects for growth, or at least the replacement of the now defunct TLC, are limited? Was growth of Frostbite into a larger bloc ever an issue?

[Ivan Moldavi]

Frostbite has never sought growth. It was founded solely as a bloc of alliances that were led by former Polar Emperors.

If Assington starts and alliance we will see growth.

[Hydro]

Oh, there must have been a mistake. I didn't demote Heggo at all.

Has anyone ever been demoted?

[Heft]

For the last month? Nice try.

No, recruiting on/to Brown is absolutely difficult. I know because I used to run an alliance there. Image of the team color aside, you are competing with GATO for what new nations that do stumble in. I wish there had been a magic formula for recruiting on Brown, but if there is, I never found it.

There has been some ghost busting going on at various points, that much is legitimate. We also have a number of accepted members still sitting on our application AA. But yes our recruitment hit some troubles in the last month or so. We're much more on track now. I suppose Brown may be an impediment to recruitment for some, but since the only nations we really push to Brown right away are the new ones that haven't gotten tied down I don't really but into that.

Then there is Frostbite. Barely touched by the Karma War in relation to other blocs, it seemed position to be a threat to both Citadel and C&G at various times and took fire from both in the OWRP as a result. At this stage however I'm not sure that the threat posed by Frostbite is necessarily genuine anymore (if it ever truly was).

While it would of course not be prudent to comment on any ongoing secret negotiations that may be taking place, but would it be fair to say that Frostbite has reached a point where it is boxed in by the "Karma" faction (for the purposes of discussion, Citadel, C&G, Superfriends) and that its prospects for growth, or at least the replacement of the now defunct TLC, are limited? Was growth of Frostbite into a larger bloc ever an issue?

Your analysis seems to suggest that not only do some of those groups see Frostbite as a threat, but that those three groups see Frostbite as so much of a threat that they are intentionally collaborating to corral us, and doing so in spite of a whole host of differences, enmities, and disagreements among themselves which in many cases are much more severe than anything they have with Frostbite. I'm not going to buy into that either. Fact is Frostbite, and even the NSO, actually have friendly relations with all sorts of alliances and I don't see us being "boxed in" whatsoever.

Frostbite was never intended to become a larger bloc and "replacing" tLC was never an issue or even an item of interest.

[bagpuss]

Just a few points of clarification

Silence never went to NSO/Will about this new trade scheme, rather Lint mentioned it to us saying Will was in charge. Evry (our trade guy) then spoke to Will about it

Wasn't even aware it was up and running until this morning before i went to work so last nights post about Silence being involved was interesting.

Amber Accords had a ODP clause in it and it definatly was CoIN not 57th who said no to NSO when NSO first approached AA about joining.

Lintwad did indeed bring up the fact that Economics does have politics associated with it which incidentally is something i agree with as you cat have a sphere encompassing trade bloc without some form of politics in it.

I will add i would of thought allowing a non govt 57th member to help with the new trade scheme would of been a good way to try and rebuild relationships.

[Veneke]

Actually, I started a thread in your Embassy on our boards and asked how things were going in 57th and your first post in that topic was rude. Something about how the Cyberverse doesn't exist IC, and therefore people that treated it as such were delusional. Which is completely ignorant since the Cyberverse as we speak of it in CN only exists IC.

Regardless, that was me trying to make simple conversation with your alliance and you couldn't make a single post on behalf of your membership that wasn't inflammatory towards those in mine.

So, no, we don't consider you an equal partner on Brown. You politicized the last economic talks by making our decision to recruit from neutrals into a contentious issue even though it has absolutely nothing to do with trading circles and have been complete jerks and jackasses in most of our topics here on the OWF, IC and OOC.

In regards to current relations with your alliance, I have simply stated that we are not having any. You make it a point to insist that we have them and that they be bad by following us around and poking your noses into affairs and issues that do not concern you. When we start doing the same in regards to 57th then you will have a point about isolationist tendencies. Until such time any comments from you in that regard are pointless and untrue.

My mistake, [ooc]the fact your boards were/are down didn't help[/ooc] and I accept the correction. You did indeed start the conversation. I'm curious though, since when has NSO regarded simple debate as "rude"? More to the point, I most certainly did not call anyone "delusional" for holding an opinion. I might call you daft, idiotic and so on, but delusional? I think not. [ooc]How the cyberverse can exist IC is still lost on me, for to call it such is to recognize the fact that it is not real. To put it bluntly. That said, I have no wish to have that argument to detract from a few clarifications I want to make.[/ooc]

I'll take the whole idea of constructive debate and put it in a box so when I want to talk to NSO[ooc], even when it came to an OOC issue[/ooc].

Mech I believe answered the whole recruitment issue. By the way, that's not politics mate, that's merely common courtesy. Now, had we decided to create an economic treaty/organization and exclude you from it, well now, then you might have a point. The 57th has never done that though, and went out of its way to propose amendments to existing treaties so as to facilitate you.

The only people who i have made offers to were Terra Cotta alliances. Silence and Browncoats came to me. The reason for this is because there is a certain level of trust and friendship required before i hand out access to the trade database. Also I wanted to fine tine the system before publicizing it. This system has been highly successful so far and i don't want to bugger it up now. If you have known about this system for so long, why haven't you come to me earlier if you wished to be apart of it, rather than air your grievances in a public forum in yet another wasteful attempt to slander and defame us.

Again i will state; I will not give anyone access who i do not trust. You may not like me or my alliance; but given the level of hate you have harbored towards us, quite frankly not even a business relationship is possible at the present.

When have we not offered equal terms to anyone? Again we are friendly and hospitable to ALL brown alliances; regardless of whether these things are shown to us in return. So please if you are actually interested in the economic system i have been constructing; feel free to find me on #nso or our forums. However, if you goal is just the continued belittlement of us I will ask you respectfully, as my alliance leaders have before, to leave us alone; we shall do the same.

Oh, yes, of course. We're the ones here slandering and defaming ye. To be perfectly honest, nobody in the 57th would probably have gone near this thread had Owned-You and Youwish not brought it up, spewing all manners of garbage and patently false things. Which, in turn, provoked us into replying. Next time you don't want us to reply, don't go and poke us in the face.

You don't want to include, that's your prerogative, but like I said, you can't do that and not claim that you're excluding folk to some degree. It just doesn't make sense. As for this "hate" business... that's a particularly harsh word. Wary, annoyed, a certain dislike for how you do things, all those aye. But hate? Hate's a bit strong. Even if you did try and recruit from us, generally try and belittle us and pretty much do you best to paint us as the bad guys of Brown. I'll point you again to the recruitment thing... ye may be being a bit too friendly there, and like an unwanted suitor, you're just annoying us now.

We do leave ye alone, pretty much as best we can. We don't idle in your IRC, we don't really go to your forums and we don't call ye out on the OWF. Can ye really say the same? There's usually 1-3 NSO folk in our IRC, and (as seen in this thread) we're often forced to defend ourselves on the OWF in various NSO threads. Ye've buggered off our forums after the recruitment debacle, I'll give ye that though.

[Wad of Lint]

Silence never went to NSO/Will about this new trade scheme, rather Lint mentioned it to us saying Will was in charge. Evry (our trade guy) then spoke to Will about it

I believe it was initially mentioned by Willirica as he attempted to set up something all-encompassing. Later it was determined it would be to the best benefit of the system to expand slowly. Since such was communicated, I have been approached several times by one of your members regarding the status of this system. It was following one of these discussions that it was ultimately decided to bring a member of Silence on board to help share the work load to the benefit of everyone involved. As I understand it, it seems he fits quite well with the system and should be able to provide tons of support and insight.

I will add i would of thought allowing a non govt 57th member to help with the new trade scheme would of been a good way to try and rebuild relationships.

In some instances it would. Unfortunately the degree of conflict that often develops would be detrimental to the success of the trade system. I would likely want to ensure the ability for a civil working relationship before progressing to the next level.

[D34th]

Frostbite has never sought growth. It was founded solely as a bloc of alliances that were led by former Polar Emperors.

If Assington starts and alliance we will see growth.

Lies! Everyone knows that NPO will join Frostbite when the surrender terms are over.

[Wad of Lint]

To Veneke:

No one is excluding you from the benefits. The current trade representatives would be more than happy to build circles that include your members.

[Veneke]

To Veneke:

No one is excluding you from the benefits. The current trade representatives would be more than happy to build circles that include your members.

Indeed, but to claim you're not excluding the 57th, or willing to treat us as an equal alliance on the Brown sphere (as Ivan made abundantly clear a few posts ago), is still a falsehood.

[ChairmanHal]

Your analysis seems to suggest that not only do some of those groups see Frostbite as a threat, but that those three groups see Frostbite as so much of a threat that they are intentionally collaborating to corral us, and doing so in spite of a whole host of differences, enmities, and disagreements among themselves which in many cases are much more severe than anything they have with Frostbite. I'm not going to buy into that either. Fact is Frostbite, and even the NSO, actually have friendly relations with all sorts of alliances and I don't see us being "boxed in" whatsoever.

Oh I doubt they have secret IRC channels devoted to plotting against Frostbite. It would also be easy to explain negative comments against Frostbite/NSO on the OWRP as being the thoughts of individuals who in no way represent their alliance. I would not dismiss possibility of some behind the scenes chatter out of hand however. Remember, 9 months ago whole alliance blocs actively plotting NPO and Q would have been totally unthinkable...unless you were taking the meetings of course.

Frostbite has never sought growth. It was founded solely as a bloc of alliances that were led by former Polar Emperors.

If Assington starts and alliance we will see growth.

I'm sure Grub wouldn't be happy if he departed, even if it expanded Frostbite.

Thank you for your responses.

[SirWilliam]

When will NSO treaty someone from purple? And which lucky alliance will it be?

I hate to interrupt but this most urgent of questions was never answered amongst the debating.