The Orphans – 2015 Annual Review

The Orphans – 2014 Annual Review

It’s been another year that the Orphans has been around. Let’s have a small look at what has happened over the last year and what we are looking to do in the future

The Orphans

With 2014 over with your lovable Ass’ GM Shuartzu has assigned me, your lazy GM, to put together a collection of thoughts and convert them into text format, *sigh*.

2014 has seen the Orphans change quite a bit, especially in the region of expansion. We started the year with our awesome guild in Star Wars: The Old Republic and ended it with an equally active guild in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and an almost dead guild in Guild Wars 2! Although our list of active members for each guild has fluctuated, waned and grown we still manage to maintain a steady group of 8-10 members who continually strive to have a good time and keep the guild alive.

In addition to “expansion” we have managed to rack up some impressive, for us, achievements. We finally managed to defeat the Dread Council in Dread Palace before the 3.0 patch. In addition we kicked our habit of wiping in EC, with a little help from 5 extra levels and better gear, shhh. Furthermore we have been making leaps and bounds in our Final Fantasy guild <Orphans of Treno> thanks to Shuartzu’s leadership, see the end of year report from him.

This year has also seen us getting into the social and editing side of things with a website, generously and continually edited by Shuartzu, which is starting to take shape as new ideas bounce around. In addition we also have a YouTube channel, which some may not be aware of. We have only been posting videos as our schedules allow, or if Elthea ever remembers….Check out the channel if you feel like laughing at the ineptitude and idiocy of our members!

One of the major setbacks this year has been the dissolution of our alliance with the Guild <Merchants of Mayhem> who we shared operations/dungeons with in SWTOR and FFXIV. Through disagreements, personal issues and amicable splits the joint cooperation disintegrated and people went their separate ways. Some members still stay in contact and occasionally join us on Operations, however the benefits of the alliance are long gone, which is a shame as we were stronger and had a greater pool of players for it.

So where do we go from here? Well each Guild will have its own plans and ideas for their individual game. The main similar goal for each Guild is expansion. I have been attempting to grow our Star Wars guild for a while now; however it is proving difficult to find people who share our way of gaming. Treno’s growth will be down to Shuartzu and Elthea, the two main driving forces behind the guild there. Tor’qua (Guild Wars) will hopefully and eventually get properly underway when Elthea and I can dedicate some time to it. The main aim for 2015 is to get a steady membership for each of the three guilds under the Orphan banner and have them run autonomously under separate Guild masters. This way allowing them to all be subject to attention and activity, however achieving this is a whole different ball game. Let’s see what 2015 holds for the Orphans!

Shuartzu’s Say: One key theme that exists in all three guilds of the Orphans is a need for recruitment. Over the last two years the guild has grown into quite a close-knit community with “the core” membership becoming very close. While this is a truly wonderful thing, we must together try to ensure we do not close ourselves off from others wanting to join our inner circle. We have made a lot of progress on both SWTOR and FFXIV over the last year, catching up to much of the current content. I personally feel that the theme for 2015 as far as the guild is concerned is “recruitment”. Get out there and helps us build a bigger and better community.

Star Wars: The Old Republic –  Orphans of Taris

<Orphans of Taris> is our main guild in what can only be described as a conglomerate, despite how much some people dislike the word! The guild itself has had its membership fluctuate quite rapidly this year, with many members flitting between the 3 guilds we now possess. Despite this a token amount of members remained throughout the Guild and kept it alive and for this I would like to specifically thank our Star Wars Officer Sanro Tokare for remaining there and helping to maintain the Guild during its very quiet period.

2014 has seen us rack up some achievements and fond memories. As mentioned above we downed the Dread Council in Story Mode 8man Dread Palace before the patch and finally got Explosive Conflict Hard Mode out the way, although not impressive it has allowed a lot of Orphans to progress with their therapy! Thankfully I do not need to remember everything we have completed as we have our new Operations table which shows which Operations we have completed on our website, go check it out to see how poorly, I mean well, we are doing!

This year has also seen the rise of Orphan Squadron in Starfighter, with Elthea and I taking the Starfighter based PVP by the horns and humping it into submission! Despite it being the two of us, with random thirds joining, we have managed to achieve great things in this forum and are still looking for other Orphans to join us in kicking arse and taking names!

This is the part where I discuss my plans for the guild in the future right? Pretending that I have a great idea or have envisioned what we will be doing as I am really organised, which I of course, have totally done…..2015, what does it hold? With the release of the 3.0 expansion Shadow of Revan I our main focus will be levelling and gearing for end content in the start of the New Year. Following this we will then be focusing on progressing through the new Operations and Flashpoints released. In addition we will be clearing all of the old content on all difficulties. The main aim for 2015, as it always is, is expansion. All lieutenants and above have the option to invite to the guild and I would really like it if people exercised this right. You are given this right as I trust your judgement on inviting people to our Guild and I personally would like to have more people join in with our wipes/runs of operations and flashpoints so get inviting! The more people in the guild the more excuse you have to ignore Erio, if that is not incentive enough then I do not know what is!

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn – Orphans of Treno

The Orphans of Treno branch of the Orphans has been up and running now for just under a year with plenty to be proud of. Although we have stalled in certain places such as the Binding Coil of Bahamut – Turn 5, we have continued to make plenty of progress in the end game content.

Although we have yet to complete them all as a full guild run, the majority of the guild has cleared all current extremes just in time for the new Trials to drop in update 2.5 (20th January 2015). We are scheduled to complete Shiva EX, Titan EX and Ifrit EX as a full guild in the near future. Many of the main ops team has been grinding Shiva EX for gear, we will be looking to organise more runs for other members in order to help prepare ourselves for the Second Coil of Bahamut. We’ve already started having completed Turn 6 and will be looking to complete Turns 7-9 as our next guild priority. We will then move on to running runs of Second Coil of Bahamut to better prepares us for the Final Coil of Bahamut.

As with our other guilds, our weak point is definitely our membership. A lot of members have come and gone as our main operations team has changed over the last year. I would like to encourage any current members to recruit any potential members that you find. The more of us there are to run events, the faster we can make more progress (and the less waiting around there will be!)

Guild Wars 2 – Orphans of Tor’qua

<Orphans of Tor’qua>, at the moment, is a pretty much dead guild. It has minimal to almost no activity, however in 2015 this will hopefully change! The Guild Wars 2 guild was started after Raph and Tirtz delved into the game during the <Orphans of Treno> busy period, however it never really took off due to the lack of a driving force.

In 2015 the plan for this guild is, as it is for all 3, growth. In order to achieve this I believe it needs an active few members. I plan on spending more time on this guild in the New Year and hope that I can get a few people to help me make it grow. In addition I plan on passing the role of Guild Master on to someone else who can spend more time on it then I can as I will also be managing the <Orphans of Taris> as well as my demanding schedule! If you think you have the stones to take on the role of Guild Master in our Guild Wars 2 branch please put yourself forward for consideration!

Future Projects

The main project I hope to focus on in the future is our YouTube channel. It would be nice for the Guild to have chronicles of our misadventures and be able to laugh at our stupid conversations. Unfortunately I cannot do this on my own as I lack the time to edit material. This project could be aided by other members recording their experiences in game, which can easily be done via Over Wolf (see me if you need help).