“Red Panda Army” Guild

Red Panda Army Guild Charter

What is Red Panda Army?
Red Panda Army is a raiding guild on the Earthen Ring - US server. We are comprised of individuals whose goal is to kill bosses, get loot, and have fun along the way. However, we are not a hardcore progression guild. While we maintain a status quo for all our members, we will never raid additional days outside of our schedule, require 100% attendance, or ask our members to grind on a boss for more hours than are present in the allotted raid week. Simply put, our goal is to foster a successful raid environment without taking the game too seriously.

Red Panda Army CODE OF CONDUCT
As you might have surmised, we're a rough and tumble bunch. Most of the conversations held in guild chat are not for the meek. However, while it's all in good fun to joke around, we are not without our own set of rules.

Rule #1: BE CIVIL
We do not expect everyone in the guild to be friends, but we do expect players to be civil toward each other. Therefore, players will not harass each other for any reason. This includes but is not limited to nasty whispers, the usage of in game toys, inappropriate usage of raid buffs such as misdirect. Additionally, we will not tolerate overt racism, gay bashing, sexism, sexual harassment or other acts of ignorance.

Rule #2: BE CLEAR
We do not harbor ninjas. Players running PUG raids WILL announce the loot rules at the beginning of each and every raid and whenever asked by players in the raid. If it is suspected that one of our members has ninja'd an item, please inform the guild leader directly, with substantial evidence, and within a reasonable amount of time so that the issue may be resolved.

Rule #3: BE PREPARED
Red Panda Army expects raiders to come to progression content prepared. Being prepared means you are:
- You are fully Enchanted
- You are fully Gemmed
- You are fully flasked with the appropriate flask
- Your professions are maxed out
- You are specialized for PVE
- You are on time to raids (or let others know you will not be there via the forums)

What happens to players that violate the rules?
If it is found that you are in consistent violation of either Rule #1 or Rule #2 then expect to be booted immediately and with extreme prejudice.
If it is found that you are in consistent violation of Rule #3 you will be demoted to friend rank and will be re-evaluated at a later date if it is shown that your performance has improved.

What if something isn't covered in the rules but it's still troublesome to me?
Please inform the guild leader or any of the officers so that the issue can be resolved.

What are your raid times?
We raid Tuesday through Thursday from about 7:30 PM until 11:00 PM.

Does Red Panda Army run any additional raids?
Officially? No. However, there are several ten man groups as well as an alternate twenty five man group which run outside of our traditional raid hours. If you are interested in participating in one ask around! Many of our members are interested in running additional content and have several alternate characters.

Old Content
Our goal as a guild is to defeat the challenges that lie before us. However, we will occasional run old content. We strongly encourage raiders to attend these events to support the guild, but we will not penalize those who choose not to come. If these events occur during our normal raid times, effort points will be awarded to those who do choose to come as a bonus for supporting the guild. Gear from previous tiers will generally not cost any gear points, but we reserve the right to loot council specific items (i.e. Heroic Death's Choice). Alternate characters are welcome to come to these runs if they are appropriately geared.

What are the guild ranks?
* Alternate Panda - Alt Rank
* Buddy Panda - Social Rank
* My Little Panda - Recruit Rank
* Red Panda - Raid Rank
* Angel Panda Alt - Officer Alt
* Angel Panda - Officer Rank
* Cool Name - Guild Master

How do I move up in rank?
The Class/Role Leader, in conjunction with the Guild Leader, will promote prospective members based on multiple factors, some of which include (but are not limited to):
* Basic player skills such as spatial awareness and the ability to improvise.
* How well you know and play your class.
* Guild interaction and personal conduct.

Swapping Characters / Roles:
On occasion, players become bored with their current character / role in a raid and feel the need to change up their play style to keep interested in the game. While this is not necessarily frowned upon, swapping characters / roles has, historically, created unnecessary conflict within the guild. Therefore, unless we stand to gain a significant benefit from the addition of a new spec / role to our ranks the answer will be no. If in the event a character / role swap is approved, the player will be stripped of rank and considered a new recruit who will have no priority on loot or raid spots. As a new recruit, the player will also stand the risk of being cut from the raid group should their performance be less than adequate.

Alternate Characters:
In general, Red Panda Army does not allow alternate characters into the main raid. However, there are some exceptions to this rule. If bringing in an alternate character would better diversify the raid and / or provide a utility otherwise not present in the current raid configuration then it will be brought. Whether this is the case or not will be determined by the raid leader. Do note that alternate characters will have no priority for loot over other characters in the raid. In other words, their sole purpose in the raid group is to help further the guilds raid progression NOT to benefit the individual player.

Can I invite my friends to Red Panda Army even if they aren't raiders?
Certainly. We encourage members to bring in all their friends. After all, if a spot opens up in the raid group and your friend is a known quantity we want to talk to him first.

What type of loot system does Red Panda Army use?
We use the EPGP loot system.

Introduction
EPGP stands for Effort Points/Gear Points. Effort Points (EP) quantify the effort each member put towards the, hopefully common, guild goals. Gear Points (GP) quantify what loot each member got back in return. Loot priority (PR) is computed as the quotient of the two: PR = EP/GP

The person with the higher PR gets the first say on loot. As a result, the more effort you put the more gear you receive. As a matter of fact, the gear you receive is proportional to the effort you put IN. EPGP is based on this simple principle, but there are some complexities that need to be dealt with which will be covered below.

Decay
In order to award recent effort more than past effort, which in effect avoids PR hoarding for veterans and enables new coming and dedicated members of a guild to be awarded properly, EPGP supports a decay mechanism. Decay simply removes a chunk of EP and GP from the totals, effectively leaving PR unchanged. For example with a decay of 10% applied each week, for each 7 days that pass your effort's rewards get diminished by 10%. The effort you put 10 weeks ago will only be worth 34.8% of what it did when you received it ( (1-0.1)10).

Priming the System
A loot system should behave reasonably not only in its steady state but also when new members join a guild and the guild's efforts. For this reason some extra parameters need to be setup.

Base GP
Base GP adds a certain GP to each member of a guild. This means the final GP of each member is: GP = BaseGP + RealGP. All PR computations happen on GP not BaseGP or RealGP. Decay also applies to GP as a whole but it only diminishes RealGP. As such GP can never be lower than BaseGP. For example, say we have BaseGP = 100 and RealGP = 10. Applying a 10% decay will result in RealGP = 0 for a total of 100 GP. Base GP prevents new recruits or long time inactive members from trumping your dedicated members just because their GP is 0 and thus their PR infinite.

Min EP
Min EP puts a limit, which members should exceed in order to have any loot priority. This is more or less an attendance check and a road block for new members to reach a point after which they can need on loot. Anyone below MinEP has in effect lower PR then everyone above MinEP even if their effective PR is higher. For example MinEP = 10000 and member A has 20000 EP and 4000 GP for 5 PR and member B has 1000 EP and 100 GP for 10 PR. In this case member A has higher priority for loot since he/she is above the MinEP threshold even though his/her PR is lower than member B.

Taken from: EPGP

What if I can't get into the main raid? Is there a standby system?
Yes. Red Panda Army uses the standby system built into the EPGP mod. Whenever a player is put on standby, they will be required to whisper the person running EPGP for the evening (usually Cyanotic) periodically to obtain EP.

Transitions between raiders on standby and raiders in the raid must flow smoothly. Therefore it is our expectation that raiders on standby will come into the raid immediately after being called in. If a raider is asked to come into the raid and does not reply within a reasonable period of time, then they will lose the last tick worth of effort points they received. If a raider refuses to come into the instance, for whatever reason, then they will lose credit for the entire evening.

Off-Spec Gear
We're still discussing this and hopefully we will have an answer by the time we return to 25 man raiding. For the time being, our current system will remain intact.

I'm interested in joining Red Panda Army. Is there anyone I can talk to to get more details?
Yes you can contact any of the following officers:
Melynadra - Guild Leader: Tanking Role Lead
Smokey - Officer
Grumpf - Melee Role Lead
Utopian - Healing Role Lead


Disclaimer
We. the officers of Red Panda Army, reserve the right to make decisions on guild policy that we deem necessary for the benefit or welfare of the guild and its members. This privilege includes, but is not limited to awarding loot, promotion of raid members, and regulation of member conduct. As guild leader, I (Melynadra) have the FINAL SAY in ALL guild matters.