For those of you who don't know what Ranked Kick Ball is, it's basically where two teams from the same faction get teams together to place into the Ranked War Zone queue. How do we do this?

Well, it actually requires a great deal of patience and humility. You have to drop your bond/connection to your normal clique/guild and take up the challenge of running with players that you may or may not have the most experience playing with.

To get things started, you first have to have at least 16 interested individuals in order to form two teams. So what is done is you all join one large Ops Group. After you've created the Ops Group with 16 players, you then select two team captains. Once the captains are identified, they then begin the process of picking their teams. The captain that picks first gets to choose one player and the captain that picks second is allowed to choose two players; hence forth, each captain selects one player for their respective team. At the conclusion of each match, new captains are selected and new teams are picked.

With that said, Ranked War Zones aren't like Non-Ranked War Zones where there is a possibility of running with no Tanks or no Healers. Team composition is very important and gear is of equal importance. So if you're ever considering participation in Ranked War Zones I would encourage you to at least know the basic fundamentals of each War Zone in the game and also ensure that you're equipped with mostly War Hero gear.

Now that we've got the basics, I'd like to start doing a Ranked Kick Ball night at least once a weekend or ever other weekend if possible. So please, reply to this thread with the name(s) of the character(s) that you're interested in participating with so I can add you to my Friend's List in-game and contact you when we are planning to play some Ranked Kick Ball.

Lastly, Ranked Kick Ball stresses sportsmanship and fair play. Competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of respect between players, adherence to the rules of the game, and the basic joy of play.

If enough are interested, let's see if we can get a game going tonight! Looking forward to hearing from you.

I would be very interested.

Tann'se - Scoundrel Heals

Siir - Sentinel

Atone - Dps or Heals

Really interesting idea, have a few characters but Cylerian (sawbones) and Cyterian (Sentinel) would be the only ones geared enough to be fair inclusions.

That said, I have no qualms deferring to those more established in EH's pvp community.

If ever there's an alt-day of it where people bring in middle of the road characters Cyperian (Sage), or Cyrellian (COmbat Medic) would be willing to give it a try.

Did this happen?

Gemini and Kretan would be in (two different players) to try at least. My guess is though the other faction will get wind and try to crash your party. Ranked (what are essentially PUGS) on Republic side will have Guilds on the other side lining up to farm them. Kinda like they farm the PUG bracket.

That being said, I'm willing to join in. Just post a time or send an in game message to the aforementioned characters.

Well, here's the thing. I will refer everyone to what I said at the end of Ranked Kick Ball. To any who may consider putting their 'A' Teams together to face a group of players getting together to do Ranked Kick Ball, you should definitely reconsider. Getting a team together to oust a group of players trying to get better by coordinating together in an 8v8 will not have a positive impact for any of the players involved. The drive for Ranked Kick Ball is to set more people up with opportunities and exposure to Ranked PvP in terms of being in voice chat and coordinating together in a true 8v8 environment. Ultimately the long term goal should be to have more players/teams pushing to participate in Ranked War Zones.

On another note, to any who want to participate and are afraid that the Empire players will rain on our parade. I would have words with any of the Empire players that would consider doing such a thing. It may not change the outcome or prevent them from doing it, but if the Empire wants another Ranked Team besides Game Genie to form up, then it would behoove them not to interfere with Republic Ranked Kick Ball.

I'm going to shoot for Ranked Kick Ball on the Republic side this coming Friday at 8pm server time. I have the names of the players that have already posted, but just remember that certain gear and specs are required for Ranked PvP so you definitely want to do your homework before you find yourself highly offended that you aren't picked up for Ranked Kick Ball because the gear/spec that you're running is not practical for Ranked War Zones.

Thanks to all who responded thus far!

Edit: Also, to all who have responded or are interested. TeamSpeak 3 is mandatory for participation in Ranked Kick Ball.

Hope you guys have fun, don't think anyone on Imperial side would run an 8-man to ruin your fun. Hell, hopefully I get my Guardian to 50 soon so that I can join you guys.

Good luck.

Dizeren will join in... i promise to be a perfect gentlemen as i fire pull someone

I will be there on Friday night, and am willing to participate in (almost) anything that helps Ranked PvP grow on our server, on either side.

On another note, to any who want to participate and are afraid that the Empire players will rain on our parade. I would have words with any of the Empire players that would consider doing such a thing. It may not change the outcome or prevent them from doing it, but if the Empire wants another Ranked Team besides Game Genie to form up, then it would behoove them not to interfere with Republic Ranked Kick Ball.

I would sincerely hope that wouldn't happen. Kickball is a great way to improve your skills and is the only way solo PvPers get to try ranked. It's inherently more balanced than real ranked matches (assuming team captains do a good job of picking). I love it so much, and it would just piss me off to hear anyone was screwing it up for everyone else!

It becomes more difficult to balance when involving Empire and Republic in my opinion.

Simply because there is just a larger Empire presence in Ranked right now. If it turns into a purely PUG style Ranked night then Empire will dominate as they've done in the past due to more Imperial players being exposed to Ranked and true 8v8 PvP.

Just my thoughts. I'm not saying no, I'm just saying it sounds like a recipe for discouraged Republic players who haven't been put into Ranked yet. It would be more beneficial for them to play with their own Faction and talk about strategies and things of that nature in a Voice Chat while focusing on basic Ranked fundamentals without stressing the players out too much.

Also, 4-5 Ranked matches in one night is more than enough for me. Especially if they are some of the longer Ranked matches.

I was called out for not mentioning the time again. The time we are shooting for is 8pm server time tonight.

Also, the list of interested people I have thus far is:

• Athena
  
• Roean
  
• Dizeren
  
• Alecia
  
• Sindol
  
• Elandria
  
• Joonah
  
• Tann'se/Siir/Atone
  
• Cyterian
  
• Kloma
  
• Gemini
  
• Kretan
  

That's a healthy number of players, hopefully we have a good turn out.

I'd like to thank everyone that came out for Ranked Kick Ball tonight on the Republic side of the house. Also, a special shout out to the Empire for letting us do our thing and not "raining on our parade" (<3 Guerilla and Empire).

There were so many people so I won't attempt to name you all, but I really do appreciate it.

Next weekend we will be aiming to do Ranked Kick Ball Republic side on Saturday at 8pm server time. Once again, please leave a post or send me a tell if you're interested.

Tonight was a blast and we were able to complete 6 ranked matches total (even though I only won one of them /sadface)!!

One last time, next Saturday, November 17th, 8pm server time. I hope to see everyone again!