Legion Interview Series: Virtue

Second in Aionic Thoughts Legion interview series is the Elyos Legion Virtue.  This is a newly created Legion that has a beautiful website that is still being developed.  So, here we go, I give you Virtue!

Virtue has a very colorful and beautiful website. Click the pic to see it!

Naamah: Thanks for participating!  How are you today?

Calitar: I am well. Actively developing our website so we can have a nice place to call home.

Naamah: Nice!  It’s coming along really well, laid out first-rate!

Calitar: Thanks, it has definitely been a learning experience.

Naamah: Let’s get this started!  Can you tell me a bit about the Legion and its history?

Calitar: Virtue is actually a new legion that was the brainchild of myself and Laurence. After experiencing being members and officers in other legions in other games, we decided that we wanted to take on the task of leading one. Laurence was a guild leader back in the day for Guild Wars for a guild that had a couple hundred members, so most of the implementations of the community structure in Virtue come from his experiences in Guild Wars.  I personally was a senior officer in a legion in Lord of the Rings Online that supported all the different playing styles the game had to offer, so I bring what I knowledge I gained from the position to Virtue in hopes of allowing Virtue to support all the playing styles Aion has to offer. Together, I think we make a pretty good team that is ready and willing to tackle the challenge that is running a large legion.

Naamah: So, what made you folks decide upon Elyos as your faction?

Calitar: Well, we played both sides through the closed beta events and while both were great in their own respects, the Elyos side just seemed like it had more of an environment conducive to what we wanted for Virtue. The Asmodian side has a darker tone of colors and is more desolate whereas the Elyos side is brighter and warmer feeling. We want Virtue to be a fun and relaxed community and our members agreed that playing the Elyos side seemed more relaxing and fun than the Asmodian side. Plus, I had a really hard time getting over the back hair on the Asmodians, haha.

Naamah: Yeah, the backhair is an acquired taste.  I find it funny that the Elyos folks are calling the Asmodeans Hairbacks on the Aion Source forums.  Love the inter-faction rivalry that is already being built.

Calitar:  I agree. It should make for some interesting PvP battles out in the Abyss.

Naamah: Do you think it will be difficult to build the Legion due to the fact it did not already exist in a prior game?

Calitar: I think there are added challenges to starting a new legion in a game, but I do not foresee it making it impossible to create what we are envisioning.  We brought a lot of friends from other games that share our views and goals to help us get started and we have also found a great group of players in the first few betas that are helping to make our officer corps strong. I think that with the group we currently have in place we will be able to thrive in Aion.

Calitar is not only a Legion Leader but is also the Webmaster for their newly developed website.

Naamah: How many players does Virtue currently have?

Calitar: We currently have 40 people on our in-game roster which equates to around 30 individual users. We saw a massive influx in recruiting at the end of CB5 and we hope that the trend continues in CB6 and OB.

Naamah: How big are you wanting Virtue to become, and if bigger than the 90 members allotted, how do you intend to handle members over 90?

Calitar: We will grow to the size that accommodates as many members that choose to be apart of Virtue. When that number increases beyond the 90 member limit we will evalutate our options with the given circumstances at the time. Currently, we believe that we will just create as many legions as it takes to accommodate everyone. We will also be actively participating in an Alliance system, so members of the Virtue Community may not necessarily be members of the Virtue Legion.

Naamah: I noticed that you are also going to be having a SWTOR Guild, how do you expect that to impact the Aion Legion?

Calitar:  SWTOR will not be releasing for another 2 years or so by which point we hope to have our Aion legion at maximum capacity. We invite our members to play both games or either game of their choosing. Our goal at Virtue is to create a community environment which encompasses multiple games. I therefore don’t see SWTOR “impacting” us at all because if members choose to move games, they will still be with us in our community. When SWTOR releases we will be actvely supporting both games, so our hope is that both games have a thriving Virtue Community in them. It is entirely possible that we will be expanding Virtue into other games in the future, but our two focuses right now are on Aion and SWTOR.

Naamah: Whats the focus of your Legion? PvP or PvE?

Calitar: The overall goal of Virtue is to have fun; after all this is a game. What constitutes fun in a game is different for each person, so we will actively support all playing styles. We have Officers that have extensive experience in each playing style, so we feel we have all the resources needed to be a multi-faceted legion.

Naamah: How is the leadership structured?

Calitar: The Virtue Community Council manages all games in our structured gaming community. The Council votes on all community matters and is made up of a chair person representing a specific society/group in our government structure. For example: The chair person of crafting has the duty to oversee all crafting related events and information for all our games. That person will supervise all officers and apprentices in that society/group of expertise. Individual game officers will only have responsibilities pertaining to that one game and do not control community matters.

There is a High Council that is comprised of three system administrators that acts as an appellate court to decisions made by the Council. We want our members to be the deciding factor of the direction of the legion rather than just one figure-head and we feel a council-based system is the best way to do that. Also, all leadership positions have a “tour of duty” assigned to them. When that tour is up, a new person will take that leadership role. We feel this will make Virtue a legion that is continually growing and adapting to game play with new and fresh ideas and also allows for our members to adpat their schedules to real life events. We believe this will help our members feel like they are apart of the community more than just being regular members all the time.

Naamah: Will you have a tax system in place to pay for Legion upgrades and the like?

Calitar: Virtue will not have a tax system. We feel that each member will be able to contribute to the community in a way in which they are best able to. Our crafters will support the legion by creating items needed to do the content, our PvP members will offer protection to other members while they do their tasks, and PvE members will offer their knowledge of the world. People who contribute large amounts of materials or other forms of effort for a month will be allowed to choose either an event, have crafters craft them something, or go on a run for loot in which all proceeds will go to them as a thank you for their support of the community.

Naamah: Are you roleplay friendly?

Calitar:  No, we will not be supporting active roleplaying. We do not frown upon it and our members are free to do so, but we will not be actively supporting it within the community.

Naamah: What is your stance on ganking?

Calitar: Virtue does not condone the ganking of low level players by high level players. If another legion ganks our low level players regularly for no purpose other than to kill them and not earn any points , thereby disrupting our members progress, our anti-gank squad will actively hunt the offending players. Our legion members will also provide support when we see high levels attacking low levels of other legions in the same manner.  We will also be maintaining a “kill on site” list of any legion or players guilty of continuously ganking our members. We will not tolerate our members playing time being ruined by players who are ganking just for the sake of ganking. Even level fights are fine and fair, but having high levels purposely kill low levels for no points is not alright in the eyes of Virtue. Our legion will also not tolerate any players camping portals, Resurrection spots, or defeated players. All these rules will apply to our members, and any offending member will be promptly banned from our community.

Naamah: What is the Legion stance on exploits, if a member is found exploiting or the like?

Calitar: Virtue does not condone exploits. If a member of Virtue is found to be using exploits, such as 3rd party programs not allowed by the user liscence agreement, we consider that cheating and the member will be banned when proof is supplied. However, we do encourage our members to come up with innovative and strategic methods for tackling game content and do not views these as exploits.

Naamah: Last question!  Picture this: Your Legion is swooping down on the Asmo from above, a furious and epic battle is about to ensue, what music is playing as the soundtrack?

Calitar: Let The Bodies Hit The Floor by Drowning Pool!

Thanks to Calitor and everyone from Virtue for the interview.  Their website is not yet complete, but its coming along nicely.  You can visit them, and apply, here!!

The next interview in the series will come early next week!  Thanks for reading and take a look at Virtue if you are looking for an up and coming Elyos Legion!!