Highlighted Guild
Pax Republica – Galactic Republic
This week, on Community Checkpoint, we talk with the Pax Republica’s GM, Nwahs. He will fill us in on how this guild got its start, their focus, how they are organizing for 2.4 and explain to us about E.O.T.G. Nwahs also gives us his thoughts on the importance of good leadership. As an example, he explains how he manages his duties to the guild and gameplay. Let’s get ready for the Q&A section and learn more about Pax Republica.
See how this PVP server based guild has adapted & overcome after the Jump…
Guild Q&A
Can you tell us how Pax Republica got started as a guild in SWTOR? How did you come to join this guild and why?
Pax Republica was created on August 28, 2009. The game has been publicly announced not too long before that. There were a lot of die hard Star Wars/MMO fans who were already forming guilds to be ready for the game, even though it wouldn’t come out until December 2011. One of these guilds was Pax! We were initially founded by a player named “Gaiutus”. He was a very well known player back in the pre-launch and launch days. He strove to make Pax an example for all other guilds to follow as far as community relations, sportsmanship and anti-trolling, while also being a very powerful force in PvP. I joined the guild because I loved the organization and Charter that preached mutual respect, no drama, maturity, and an active, family atmosphere.
What is your position in the guild? How important is good leadership in a guild? How do you balance managing your leadership duties with your enjoyment of the game?
I am the guild leader now! I have been serving as the leader ever since 1.3 or 1.4. Guild leadership is so important in a guild. I think the most important thing is being active in game; to be an example for other players of how to act, to answer questions, and to show that leadership is enjoying the game, which in turn supports players’ beliefs that the guild is doing well. I will admit that all the work I do for Pax to keep things organized and running smoothly does cut down on my play time, but I enjoy the administrative tasks in a way. I see it as a hobby that I do to utilize my leadership skills. I also think the more work you do outside of game to create a great guild environment where everyone can get along, the more fun you can have when you are in game, so it works out in the long run for all guild members.
What faction and server are associated with Pax Republica? Does the guild have a presence on the opposing faction?
Pax Republica is primarily a Republic PvP/PvE guild on the Prophecy of the Five. We generally are made up of members that really enjoy open world PvP and try to take the “War” of these Star Wars seriously, so we generally are Republic players that like to take the fight to the Sith. However, we do also enjoy playing Imperial characters to enjoy the class stories, see the other sides of the game, and learn about our opponents, so we do have an “alt” guild just for our Sith characters called “Death and Paxes”.
Why did Pax Republic choose to join a PVP server? What does the guild feel are the benefits to playing on such a server and are there drawbacks?
As I mentioned before, the guild was founded with the plan of being primarily a PvP guild made up of very, very skilled PvP players. Those players really loved large scale PvP specifically, and wanted PvP battles to happen organically in open world. As the game launched and PvP was lacking in quality at the beginning (Ilum, only a few Warzone maps, etc.), many of those players left, but some of the leadership, like myself, stayed. We as a guild still enjoy the feeling of “realism” in the sense that when you’re leveling and completing class missions, when you see an Imperial character in the open world, you can take the fight to them just like you most likely would if you were in a Star Wars movie.
There can certainly be drawbacks. Even the most enthusiastic pvp’ers among us will sometimes want to log on, quickly do a few dailies for some stress-free fun to make credits and earn commendations, only to be annoyed by Imperials in our way attacking us. However, we generally realize that we annoy Imperials trying to do their dailies just as often, and that is the nature of the War.
Even though Pax Republica is on a PVP server the guild maintains an interest in other areas of gameplay correct?
Absolutely correct! When I took over the guild, I shifted our focus from PvP to wanting to be a guild that catered to PvP and PvE players. For the last year and a half, we’ve been pretty successful in both PvP and PvE.
As far as endgame in SWTOR, how has the guild faired in Ranked PVP and current Operations?
Having fun is always more important to us than progression, but even without static teams or recruiting hard core raiders, we have managed to clear HM TFB multiple times and have done all of HM S&V except for the last boss, but he is well within our reach. We hope to be clearing a few of the Nightmare bosses of the two current raids by the end of September, along with enjoying all the new PvP and PvE content coming in 2.4 Ranked PvP has been hit or miss for most guilds, but over the last year we have won about 60 ranked matches and lost about 35.
In regards to Ranked PVP, does the guild have plans for the new Warzone Arenas coming in Update 2.4? Do you think this will help generate more interest in Ranked PVP?
We are starting to re-organize our forces to think specifically about 4v4 Arenas now. We are looking at how many tanks, healers, DPS, and stealth classes we have. We’re going to start doing scheduled 4man premade nights again in regular warzones to practice our communication, focus fire, and strategies. We think it will certainly get pvp going again. Just having smaller number requirements will help so many more guilds and groups get involved, and the allowance of solo queues in ranked matches will be a great change. Hopefully they fix the matchmaking system this time so that your matches are generally against similarly skilled opponents, not just the opponents that queued at the same time as you.
Pax Republica has a very detailed guild charter, how has this set of articles helped the guild? Do you feel some of these traits or ideals have been lost in this day and age of gaming/internet?
It’s plain to see that when you are in our Teamspeak or on our forums, everyone is polite too each other and gets along, which is amazing in itself considering we have members from all over the world, ages ranging from 16-50+, and of differing political, economical, and religious views, among other demographic differences. People know that in our guild, bullying and disrespecting others isn’t tolerated, and that means that when people log in they know they can just have fun and not have to worry about the kind of drama you might find in your workplace or in lesser guilds. To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to tell you about the nature of gaming or the Internet as a whole! I generally try to just focus on my game and the guild I’m in, and I usually have General Chat turned off.
As part of your charter there is the E.O.T.G. regulation, can you tell us what this means and the importance of it? What advice would you give a fellow guild member to help find enjoyment in SWTOR?
EOTG stands for Enjoyment of the Game. It’s basically a way of saying we will not tolerate any drama or any kind of conflicts between players or behaviors by players that ruin the overall enjoyment of the game for others. In the end we know this is a game, and we want to have fun when we log in. Our rules and regulations may seem extreme for a gaming guild, but the ironic thing is that in the end, our bottom line is to have fun and anything that gets in the way of that will be dealt with by leadership.
We have seen how easy it is as an MMO player to get caught up in a routine of doing dailies, doing raids because you feel you have to, instantly clicking “queue for warzones” even when you don’t really want to. These things become habitual and you find yourself resenting the game. I often advise players to ask themselves what they really want to do, and why they first downloaded the game in the first place. Every few months I watch the old pre-launch trailers and media that SWTOR.com was putting out to remind myself of that wonder and excitement I had before the game launched.
Pax Republica showcasing E.O.T.G.
In your recruitment thread, Pax Republica has achieved the current max XP and Reputation bonuses through the Guild Rewards program. How has this benefited the guild with current membership and also with recruiting? What rewards would seem fitting to add to the Guild Rewards program in the future?
It’s certainly nice to level together with guild mates and get the full XP benefits, so that you can get alts leveled even faster for raiding and PvP. It makes it easier to recruit on the forums and every so often in general chat that we are recruiting, and that we have those benefits to offer. It’s also nice that we reached those benefits organically and didn’t have to arbitrarily fill our guild roster with people that don’t get along.
I think Guilds that have been around a while should be able to set up a new “Alliance” panel. In this panel you can easily see who is online from your allied guilds and be able to chat with them, without having to use /who and create custom chat channels. Another feature that would be nice would be Guild-only GTN. In LOTRO you could post something on the Auction House, set it to a very low price, and make it so that only guild members could bid. That would be great in SWTOR.
Speaking of recruiting, is Pax Republica still recruiting? If so what classes/advance classes does the guild need? What steps does a player need to take to apply to Pax Republica?
We would absolutely love to add more friendly, active, mature and skilled players to our roster, no matter what content they enjoy or classes they play. We always think that if we have a large pool of active, fun players to play with, than we can fill any premade groups or raids. I will say that we can always use active, consistent DPS players of any Advanced Class that like raiding, because it seems every week we have a different 4 DPS players and that makes it harder to progress. For PvP I believe we could use more healers and Tanks, as well as some DPS. To apply, first I’d simply explore our website and see if we are a guild that would interest you. If we are, then click “Apply” at the top of the page, and take your time completing the application so that we can get to know you and welcome you to the family!
What is the best way for players seeking to learn more about the guild and/or wishing to contact an officer about joining Pax Republica?
The best and easiest way would probably be to visit our website and post in our “Welcome Center”. This is a public forum and we’d love to say hello to any fellow SWTOR players, whether they are looking to join our guild or not. Another option is to send an in-game mail or whisper on the Republic side of the Prophecy of the Five server to any of our most active members: Nwahs, Orrgus, Swishiest, Atraeus, Gluefoot, Satiata, Arcturo, or Fippy.
That’s it for this week’s Community Checkpoint. I want to thank Nwahs, the guild’s GM, for all his time and help with this week’s article. Special thanks also to all the members in Pax Republica for letting us get to know more about their guild. If you are on the Prophecy of the Five server and looking for a guild that is into all aspects of the game and never forgets to enjoy the game, why not contact a member of Pax Republica guild to learn more.
Would you like to have your guild, event or server group highlighted on Corellian Run Radio? All you need to do is submit your guild’s website and some basic information in an email to me at jason@corellianrun.com. Your guild could be who we highlight next here at Corellian Run Radio. Thanks and see you next week!