Ansible, Inc.



=• Overview and Background •=

Ansible, Inc. was founded as a competitive intelligence firm. Dominion-aligned since its inception, the company has held contracts with the Dominion military, ICI, at least two Luminai houses, and various private entities. Ansible, Inc. has expanded its capacity beyond its original focus on competitive intelligence to include physical security, counter-intelligence, paramilitary activity, and applied research. Much of this expansion has been at the direction of Myoshin Alais, current CEO and Chairman of Ansible, Inc.

In 1660, Ansible, Inc. was contracted to serve as a contracted agent for Dominion interests on Nexus. By 1664, Ansible, Inc. had re-established its base of operations to the planet and begun major activities.

=• Corporate Timeline •=

1657 AE: Ansible, Inc. founded by Myoshin Alais

1658 AE: Dorian Walker discovers planet Nexus

1659 AE: Ansible, Inc. receives official sanction of Emperor Myrcalus the Vindicator

1660 AE: Ansible, Inc. receives commission to explore, colonize, and serve Dominion interests on Nexus

1662 AE: Ansible, Inc. revises corporate structure, forming Directorate of Program Security and Directorate of Competitive Intelligence

1663 AE: Ansible, Inc. begins advance reconnaissance of Nexus

1664 AE: Ansible, Inc. transfers major operations to Nexus.

=• PvE •=

Ansible offers a range of PvE opportunities. Ansible recognizes that different people have different interests in PvE and the guild tries to cater to as many as possible, without diluting the strength of their end-game raiding.

Ansible welcomes both casual players and hardcore raiders. The founding members of the guild are all MMO veterans, with extensive raid experience.

The guild's PvE goals are two-fold:

''1. We aim to enable casual players to experience more content than they otherwise might, in a friendly environment, surrounded by experienced, available, and easily identified veterans and experts.

2. We want to clear the most difficult content in the game. If you’re looking for a guild that will capture world firsts, this is not the guild for you. But if you enjoy figuring out difficult content with competent players, we would likely make a great home for you!''

More casual members benefit from guild perks, the experience and advice of officers and senior members, and frequent casual raid nights. Hardcore players have the opportunity to join raid cells, which will tackle the most difficult content in the game.

Current raid times are Tuesday (7:30-11pm), Wednesday (7:30-11pm), and Saturday (4-7pm).

=• PvP •=

In PvP, the guild aims to create a friendly and competitive environment where players are compelled to excel. Ansible is always open to recruiting passionate pvpers and individuals who are committed to making a positive impact upon the Wildstar PvP community.

The guild boasts multiple arena teams, guild battleground pre-mades, and an ongoing guild-wide fight club with a championship belt. While these activities are a large part of Ansible's PvP focus, the primary goal is to develop an efficient and deadly Warplot team.

=• RP •=

To the general public and many of its employees, Ansible, Inc. presents itself as an intelligence and wetworks firm, contracted with the Dominion military. One real-world analogue of Ansible might be a corporation like the former Blackwater, but with significantly more focus on espionage and counter/competitive intelligence. While there’s a lot of space in Ansible for stories focused on direct action (security, counter-espionage), the stories we're most excited about telling focus on Ansible ‘s competition with other corporate guilds: infiltration, paranoia, corporate espionage, and competition all make for interesting stories.

There’s a lot going on behind the scenes in Ansible and while a lot can be gleaned from fiction and other posts on the website, we’ve built several (hopefully exciting) reveals into the planned arcs.

Character Roles
The guild is led by and managed by RPers – we want to make sure that roleplay receives the attention it deserves. While we do have members whose priority is PvE or PvP or crafting, we’re working to make sure the various communities are all able to work together without breaking immersion.

Management: currently, the officers most involved with roleplay are Panopticus and Myoshin. We should be your first points of contact for any confusion, for help with knowledge requests, for GM intervention, etc. Especially if you’re running into OOC trouble with another player or another guild, let us know.

Employees: pretty much everyone else. We have a circle established just for our RPers (if you’re not already in, let Panopticus or Myoshin know – you probably missed a meeting), which serves as a company-wide comms link. Don’t abuse this – it’s all IC all the time.

Character Creation and Development
Whether you have no character concept, just the outlines of one, or a fully developed character, it’s a very good idea to have a chat with one of the rp officers: we can help flesh out your character, link you up with characters you might already know, provide information your character might have unique access to, etc. etc.

There are also a bunch of posts on the RP forum about character background, relationships, and design – I recommend you check these out!

Forms of RP in Ansible
Going forward, the guild has several forms of RP:

Monthly prompts: At least once a month, and possibly more frequently, the GMs send in-character prompts to the guild – either to groups of players or on a by-character basis. These prompts will usually include a revelation of some information, the introduction of some crisis, or the continuation of an evolving plotline. Responding to these can take place in game or in posts on the website. Dropping them entirely is okay, too. The first of these will start going out in July, 2014.

GM'd Events: Typically, as various prompts and plotlines are investigated or resolved, various threads should come together, forming a coherent story. At the climax or conclusion of this story, we will try to have a GM’d event: these will play out very much like tabletop roleplay might.

Day-to-day interaction: Of course, individual character development and stories are critical to compelling group activities. Forming IC relationships and friendships is very important.

Short fiction: Finally, the guild encourages short fiction and PbP rp on the website. Mission-style prompts are posted monthly, as well as some other formats, but everyone is encouraged to post whatever seems sensible.

=• Organizational Structure •=

Myoshin Alais is the chairman and chief executive officer of ansible. In this dual role, Mr. Alais is able to utilize the in-depth focus and perspective gained in running the company to effectively and efficiently guide the board. Mr. Alais have served with distinction on the board, as demonstrated by the company’s growth and development.

Myoshin Alais presides at all meetings of the board. Lead Director Panopticus presides at all meetings of the board at which the chairman is not present. Both the chairman and lead director have the authority to call board meetings. Both the chairman and lead director are members of the board’s executive committee.

The chairman establishes board agendas which are provided along with supporting material to each director in advance of meetings. The lead director confers with the chairman to approve information sent to the board, meeting agendas for the board and meeting schedules to assure that there is sufficient time for discussion of all agenda items.

The chairs of the board committees establish their agendas and review their committee materials in advance, communicating directly with the chairman and lead director as each determines appropriate. Moreover, each director is free to suggest agenda items and to raise matters at board and committee meetings that are not on the agenda.

The strong working relationships among the lead director, chairman and other directors are supported by a governance culture that fosters open communications among the members, both during meetings and in the intervals between meetings. It is the sense of the board that such communication is important to develop an understanding of issues, promote appropriate oversight, and encourage the frank discussion of matters essential to leading a complex and dynamic enterprise.

We will continue to reexamine our corporate governance policies and leadership structures on an ongoing basis to ensure that they continue to meet the company’s needs.

Corporate by-laws are available here.

=• Code of Conduct •=

Ethos
Ansible's Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines that strive to address most situations that occur while playing. However, it is impossible to draft a line item for every possible thing that could ever occur while gaming and such things as "attitude" will likely never properly be addressed directly.

Where there is no specific guideline to follow, Ansible urges its members to keep in mind its core values:

''We are all human beings, even if we're separated by distance. We treat one another with respect and dignity. We absolutely, 100% respect that each of us leads a life outside of the game. That life comes first.''

While every case is different, violations of the code of conduct are taken very seriously by the guild. Members who commit multiple infractions will be asked to leave the guild.

Basic Expectations
Members are expected to give each other the benefit of the doubt, to interpret each others’ words with the greatest amount of charity, and to treat each other with respect and dignity.

Racist, sexist, heterosexist, and otherwise bigoted behaviors are not acceptable.

We expect our members to utilize the website and sign-up in advance for guild events and guild fora. Preference will always be given to those who sign up.

Use of Public Guild Communication
The guild is 18+. Exceptions have been made, but the content of our voice server and guild chat are often inappropriate for people under the age of 18.

Guild chat and public rooms in Ansible's voice server should never be used to resolve heated issues. Infractions of this policy are taken very seriously.

Members are encouraged to be active on the forums. Members are also encouraged not to clutter up the forums. Members are expected to report anything weird, broken, or offensive on the forums.

The web administrators will remove, edit, move or lock any thread or post for reasons of clarity or for violations of the above ethos.

Personal Issues
If an issue arises between two members, evidence (screen captures, etc.) should be preserved. Members are expected to make a good faith effort at finding a resolution themselves. This effort should be made through private communication. This communication should also be preserved.

If a serious issue arises between two members that cannot be resolved without intervention, members are expected to seek the counsel of an Ombudsman as soon as possible. This effort should be made through private communication. This communication should also be preserved. Ombudsmen will attempt to defuse the situation and allow both members to ‘cool off’. If an Ombudsman can find an immediate remedy to the situation, it should be implemented. All instances where an Ombudsman intervenes should be documented and reported to the Board of Directors.

If a serious issue arises between a member and an Officer or Director, both are expected to contact the Chief Executive Officer or an Ombudsman.

If a serious issue arises between two Officers or Directors, both are expected to contact the Chief Executive Officer.

If a serious issue arises between any guild member and the Chief Executive Officer, both are expected to contact the Lead Director.

General PvE
Whenever a member is grouped with players outside of the guild, they are encouraged to remember that they represent the guild. Poor behavior reflects badly on the guild as a whole and thus will not be tolerated.

Ansible does not tolerate exploiting or griefing other players regardless of guild or faction. Griefing refers to the act of deliberately attempting to ruin the enjoyment of another player by means.

Knowingly using exploits, cheats, or hacks is a violation of Ansible's code of conduct.

Raids and Other Organized Guild Activities
All guild-sponsored activities will have an identified Leader.

The Leader is responsible for raid composition. If a member objects to raid composition (if, for example, they were not taken, or someone else in the guild was not taken), those objections should be held until the end of the raid. Objections along those lines should never be voiced in public communications.

Raid Leaders are expected to give guild members priority over non-guild members when selecting raid composition.

It is acceptable for members to have conditions about when, with who, and how they raid. These conditions should be made explicit well-before the beginning of the raid. Conditions may include, but are not limited to: only raiding with a spouse/loved one/family member/significant other, not raiding with specific individuals, only raiding with certain Raid Leaders.

Activities listed on the calendar have a length associated with them. Members unable to raid for the entire length are expected to give notice in advance to the Raid Leader. Members who leave in the middle of a raid without giving notice have breached the code of conduct.

Raid Leaders are responsible for making loot rules clear to non-guild members.

Raid Leaders are responsible for establishing egalitarian loot policies for set progression groups.

Members in raids should take direction from the Raid Leader. Ideas or suggestions for new tactics should be sent to the Raid Leader directly.

Members are expected to take criticism constructively.

PvP
Members are expected to treat everyone with respect in arenas, battlegrounds, and warplots. Repeated reports of abusive behavior are taken extremely seriously.

Members are expected to perform to the best of their ability in arenas, battlegrounds, and warplots.

Members are expected to remain in arenas, battlegrounds, and warplots even if they seem hopeless.

Ansible has zero tolerance for hacking, exploiting, or bug abuse in PvP. Infractions of this policy are taken extremely seriously.

RP
Ansible adheres to naming conventions which must be followed if your character is to be approved. Characters may not be named after celebrities, fictional characters, existing lore characters or obvious variations. Non-RP characters may be excluded from this rule in some circumstances.

Characters must be original and not heavily based on any existing character. Inspiration is fine, plagiarism is not.

Characters in Ansible may not be overpowered. Special powers and abilities will be treated on a case by case basis, but any such abilities that could potentially lead to metagaming will not be allowed. Be realistic about what your character can and cannot do and try to make them fascinating rather than awesome.

RPing in the open with the Ansible guild tag means that a member represents the quality of RP in Ansible. Many of Ansible's members are very experienced and happy to help new members learn the ropes.

Powerposing or godmod’ing in any form will not be tolerated. Powerposing is the act of taking control of another person's character, NPC or object without their express permission to do so. This includes writing dialogue for a character or NPC you do not own, inflicting damage upon them or a character's possessions, or attempting to show-steal a scene. Always be mindful of those you RP with and check with them if you are uncertain how best to act.