hey yarr, over in FF14 where CKD is alive & well, we are inviting people into the LS and onto the forums, only it seems people can't register on the forums.
are you planning on upgrading the forums anytime soon to get rid of bots and allow people access?

right now we're probably the third biggest NA linkshell on Trabia, and the second biggest shell has approached us about a merge.

Ket Edit: This is potentially important so I split these posts out of the screenshot thread so they don't get lost underneath a pile of screenshots.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Yah, we should probably make a new thread to talk about how we can increase the CKD profile and talk about this merger idea. Shadow Boxer's forum account needs to be activated, as well.

But definitely think we need to have a bigger web presence now. Get our name out there more. Even *gasp* get the website up and running.

As for forum registering... I think simply adding a text box that they have to input a secret phrase we give them on a different page we can link via URL would be sufficient. Or have it tell them to ask one of us in LS chat what the password is and have it something like "CKD" that'd basically stop 100% of the bots.

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I don't know how I feel about a "merger," I kind of like the idea of CKD just being for old ifrits and new friends we made. I'm for the idea of inviting new people we get to know, and am happy to see that some have made CKD their main LS like Lydya and Shadow ect, but I see "guests" in the LS list whom i've never seen talk once, and whom are as of now ofcourse benign simply because there isn't any endgame, but come december with the NMs, this could pose an issue. I'm friends with people like Rocklee and everyone knows how much I love my Bishybosh, but if they aren't aligned with us we may have to start thinking about the lurker issue come NM timers ect.

my 2 cents :D

in other news yarr where the f are u, xiv rocks after this patch hah (( pting took a pretty big hit but, they fixed almost everything else I had issues with ))

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No sig because 3 sigs in a row people make me change my sig and I refuse to have a pony sig!

I agree with Madi on this one. I'm quite happy to invite and accept new people into the linkshell, but the idea of any kind of "merger" puts me off completely.

These were bad news in FFXI and I'm sure they're bad news now. What you end up with are two large groups of people who don't really interact with each other except when teaming up for a common goal, except for the few people in the middle who just happened to be friends with both and promoted the merger in the first place. Despite what people say openly, I can tell you that the majority of people are never happy with a sudden 20-30 new members who are all friends with each other and do their own thing. All of a sudden you feel like a stranger in your own home.

And what reason is there for it? We don't even have NMs in the game yet, never mind any actual end-game content. I find it quite hilarious that there are LS that have apparently broken up over drama already. What over? Wind crystals?

I'm not digging at new members btw. Like I said at the start, I'm quite happy to invite new people. But a sudden influx of 10-20 members all at once (ie: a merger) is a terrible idea imo.

As for the forums, it's definitely probably time we fixed them up. Either upgrade them or start from scratch with newer board software like Yarr suggested he might do. I'm quite happy to offer my time towards getting one fixed and set up.

i agree with ket and madi. atm the moment there is no need for competition drama to say the least.

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yea thats pretty much where i stand, too. CKD has been together for the better part of 6 years, and we can't afford to lose our identity. i think we should remain open to the idea of allowing people to join CKD, especially around the time that the Company system starts.

as it is right now, everyone CKD gets along. and there would be very little chance for any kind of drama. but if we merge with another linkshell, there would be.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

I think our linkshell already has the potential for a lot of growth. We're going to see people trickle back in when the patches come out, and I know we're going to see an influx of people once the PS3 version is released. A merger would be unnecessary (an alliance perhaps would be more appropriate? I'm not exactly sure how those work). We should allow people to register to the forums though. I would not mind seeing some fresh faces, and getting to know the other linkshells. The more stupid posts they make now the better ammunition we'll have later.

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Retired 8/21/06
Don't click this link.

SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS MUTHAFUKKA

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

When Shadow Boxer told me about this idea, I said I wasn't sure. Especially since there are companies coming in the future. That being said, I also mentioned that we'd probably happily take in new members, but that CKD is always going to be CKD. We'd happily absorb members, yes, but I don't think we'd necessarily take two linkshells and create some new hierarchy of class officers, or whatnot. We've not really even established any of that for us personally yet.

Given all that, however... I still think we need a bigger web presence. I feel like the CKD forum was basically the watering hole, or gathering place, for a lot of FFXI talk that was outside of the game... while people were at work, or otherwise not playing. I'd really love for our forums to once again become a good resource for everyone on Trabia to go to talk about things, even if they aren't a part of CKD. So I do think it's important we do some web upgrades to the forums, make it so people can openly register again without requiring us to approve it, do it in a way where we don't allow bots to sign up and such.

Most importantly, I think we need to start posting more information about our LS. Maybe we just all want to play it nice and relaxed. But clearly some of us who weren't planning on hitting it hardcore have ended up doing such. And even if we don't recruit a ton of people, or merge LS's or anything like that, I want us to be a linkshell that people do want to join, because they know we're badass.

So maybe a full merger with the LS isn't necessarily needed, but if Shadow Boxer has some friends that wouldn't mind coming over to CKD, and they'd be active primarily in CKD, maybe we can investigate it some. It would, of course, be with the understanding that CKD is CKD and will always be CKD. That they would be joining our LS and it wouldn't be some sort of dual-LS system happening.

CKD in FF11 absorbed players from other LS who wanted a taste of the good life. I would like to see CKD in FF14 end up the same way. So maybe we should Al Gore it up and start getting super serial about making CKD's presence known. Conviction is currently the top NA LS for as far as I can tell. And we also got that Triumvirate LS that is attempting to fight it's way up top.

Things to think about, at least.

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Speaking of this wouldn't updating the forum software largely fix the issue of bots? Pruning the database of bot accounts would be great too, but some work would be involved in that. I can't think of a quick way to do it without a list of actual members to compare. Then it would be a matter of a sql statement to clean up. Kayne or Ket would probably have a better idea.

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Retired 8/21/06
Don't click this link.

Definitely need a faster way of getting access to the forums. Took me long enough to get on so now I have another thing to browse while bored at work. :P

And from my experience in other MMOs through the years merges are a terrible idea. Brings in way too many unneeded political bull crap not to mention the clique part (already mentioned above). For what it's worth, I've enjoyed my time in the ls and wouldn't really want to see it get watered down or what not.

-Mesan

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-Mesan

yay Mesan

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Retired 8/21/06
Don't click this link.

Basically, we just need the website updating, upgrading, redoing, whatever. Then we can start promoting ourselves as the most egotistical assholes on the server, just like the old days.

There are a million and one free pre-made forum softwares out there with a lot of this stuff all built in. We can easily take one and customize it slightly.

At the end of the day this is Yarr's LS and site though, so he needs to do it, or at least sanction one of us to do it. I have no desire to run off and "make our own ls/site" without him.

Like who??

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

If you guys need someone to whack the bot accounts, I have way more free time at work than I have stuff to do with it, I could just go through the list and look at the random letter names and their profiles. Some I've seen have put in a website to promote. It would suck, but it would get it done.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

Or you could just automatically delete every single unapproved member? I'm sure the database flags who is and isn't approved. Then the few people who need to get in just register again.

Regardless, the board software needs updating first or it's pointless because they'll just keep signing up.

Though I sort of think that maybe it's worth just archiving this board and starting afresh.

Yah, archiving this one and having a URL link to it at the top of the new forums, and a link to the new forums from the top of the old forums, would probably be sufficient.

One bit of concern is that all of our post counts do give the impression that this is a seasoned community. If we got a new forum software, it'd be pretty hot if we could manually insert a starting post count for current members.

Alternatively, I'm sure there's a handful of minor tweaks we could do to upgrade this one. And worst case scenario, we just delete any account with a post count of 0.

Edit: And I don't think anyone is suggesting we change URLs. Moving us from the URL that everyone has memorized for years would be a terribad idea. Though having CobraKaiDojo in the URL would be interesting. Maybe a subdomain under yarrthepirate.

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Even though I wasn't in CKD on Ifrit, I posted in these forums and always thought highly of CKD as a linkshell. I always considered CKD as the #1 NA LS on Ifrit.

It was nice to start FFXIV with veteran CKD members along with veteran members from other Linkshells like Monarchy and Fate Sealers. We all came together which resulted in a badass social LS of seasoned FFXI players that will eventually work together and become the top NM/HNM LS on Trabia. The new people joined at a slow rate, which gave us time to warm up to them.

I don't like the idea of a merger, for the same reasons mentioned by others. The linkshell wouldn't feel like the comfortable home it currently is. I'm a bitter old man and wouldn't enjoy getting to know 20+ people at once, while they are spamming the LS with their inside jokes, etc. Expecially if they are assholes like many of us <3 That could bring conflict and unneccesary drama into the LS. Since linkshells are only social at the moment, we don't necessarily need to add 20+ members to take on Vrtra and Tiamat. IMO at our current rate of slowly growing, we will have a great team of people to take on the HNMs when they are added to the game.

Just because another LS has more members, doesn't mean they are better than us. I'd take 10 good people over 20 people who can't/won't work together. Afterall, the days of zerging everything as a large group in FFXIV will eventually come to an end, and it will be technical like FFXI. Have these larger linkshells accomplished anything significant on Trabia? I don't believe so. Zerging a Goobbue isn't worthy of praise. CKD is #1 on Trabia IMO.

btw I know I'm not playing and shouldn't talk, but I plan on coming back soon. Been busy irl.

And I vote "yes" for a forum upgrade.

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Whoever suggested the merger should just be discredited for thinking of something so silly this early in the game.

There's no reason to merge shells other than them wanting to control everything, we can easily surpass them which is being generous to them assuming we aren't already better.

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[In Yarr we trust.]

hey now, i wasn't suggesting we do it, i was just saying the topic was brought up. i think its worth at least mentioning to yarr that such a conversation occurred.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Relax guys.... I'm here for the RAAAAAAGGGGGEEEEEEEE

well, let's talk about this later when they actually implement Company.

We should be thinking in terms of company now though....
Not to beat a dead chocobo on this already settled topic, but what I always feared about the relaxed notion of "the linkshell is just social" and casually inviting people from all backgrounds for various reasons is that when we do create the company it becomes a sticky situation. We may run into situations where you have to say, sorry John Doe you may have been a CKD linkshell member for a while now but we can't invite you into the company because you carry a rival linkshell pearl. Or, sorry Jane Doe despite you being an original CKD member we can't invite you because you're not active enough. Or of course disgruntled people passing along info from one shell to another, either for or against us.

I was kinda hoping keeping the LS pearl close together we would have no issues just moving it into the company as an entirity once it was released. But maybe my worries are for naught and we're beyond that, I dunno. Just trying to prevent stupid drama before it occurs.

As far as the boards, I'm not hip with your technical rabble babble, but we should prepair anew or at least open up the old private boards for nm chat.

We need the forums fixed so we can start turning this place into a community hub for Trabia, get our name out there, establish ourselves as one of the server's major powers, and get ourselves private forums set back up so we can discuss things like this.

Whether we fix this one up or get a new board running is up for debate.

This'll prepare us for the addition of NMs in December and we can start discussing things about new members etc in private. No, we don't "need" these things yet, but we really should be getting stuff set up ready.

Where are you, Yarr?

That won't happen

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

isn't the whole point of CKD to deny membership? That's how it worked in FFXI

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