The Empire
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
About Us
The Empire is a gaming community formed primarily around MMO games. For The Empire, it's our community that helps make our games great. Our website and forums can be found at www.theempires.com. As it says in “About the Empire”. We believe it is your $15.00 per month, but you are spending it to be part of something greater than the impact any single character in any single game could ever have. We believe games have rules to them beyond what is clearly stated in the manuals that are placed in the box. We believe honor, reputation, courteousness, and community are all goals far greater than level or loot or ladder climbing.
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The Empire
Current Activity:
Our active supergroups are on Virtue, with a secondary set of groups on Pinnacle. Most Empire activity occurs on Virtue.
Channels
The Empire currently operates two channels in CoX. Because of family friendly policies, All Empire channel chat is G-Rated.
EoV: Is a general chat for our members, regardless of SG, Sever, or Side their on.
EoVAlliance: was made for friends of the Empire. There are plenty of good people in CoX that don't want to join the larger Empire community, but find our group and our members to be good people and good players. We've created the EoVAlliance channel to easily keep in touch with these players and have a more robust community in City of Heroes.
Recruiting
The Empire recruits people, not characters. Normally recruiting is done by having one or more of our officers run a teams with a potential recruit. Recruits are then directed to our website to review our handbook and put in an application.
Events
Saturday: The Empire currently runs a weekly Task/Strike Force at 7pm EST. While discussed in our user forums, the exact Task Force is often decided at formation. Multiple TF's will be run if enough players show up.
Virtue Verse Characters
A list of Empire characters in Virtue Verse:
| Characters | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Terra Voltic | 
| Twilight Silverlace |
Groups
All current Empire groups in CoX are general use for signing up our members characters. Currently there are no Empire RP groups, although new groups may be created as our membership requires.
| Virtue | Teleporters | Pinnacle | Teleporters | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empire of Virtue 1 (Hero) | Atlas Park Crotoa Dark Astoria Founders Falls | Independence Port Peregrine Island Perez Park Rikti War Zone | Steel Canyon Striga Isle Talos Island The Hollows | Empire of Pinnacle (Hero) | Atlas Park Crotoa Dark Astoria Founders Falls | Independence Port Peregrine Island Perez Park Rikti War Zone | Steel Canyon Striga Isle Talos Island The Hollows | |
| Empire of Virtue 2 (Hero) | Boomtown Brickstown Crey's Folly | Faultline Galaxy City Kings Row | Skyway City Talos Island Terra Volta | Empire of Shadows (Villain) | Cap Au Diable Grandville Mercy Island | Nerva Achipelago Port Oakes Sharkhead Isle | St. Martial | |
| Empire of Virtue 3 (Hero) | Atlas Park Brickstown Galaxy City Independence Port | Perez Park Rikti War Zone Skyway City Steel Canyon | Striga Isle Talos Island Terra Volta The Hollows | |||||
| Empire of Shadows (Villain) | Cap Au Diable Grandville Mercy Island | Nerva Achipelago Port Oakes Sharkhead Isle | St. Martial | |||||
| Empire of McShadows (Villain) | Cap Au Diable Grandville Mercy Island | Nerva Achipelago Port Oakes Sharkhead Isle | St. Martial | |||||
Virtue Verse Members
About the Empire
Greetings!
The following is designed to give you an overview of who we are, and the values our community represents. If after reviewing it, you find that you have unanswered questions, by all means please PM them to Relentless via the Emp Mail system on our website (by registering at www.theempires.com) or by emailing Relentless@TheEmpires.com if you have not registered yet.
A Bit of History:
The Empire was founded during the early days of Mythic Entertainment's Dark Age of Camelot as a game guild. The founding members of the guild soon found out that game guilds inherently lacked something. Something necessary and vital to making an online gaming experience complete.
Game guilds all seemed to revolve around the idea that "it's my $12.00 per month and I'll play however I want... especially because this guild will be gone in a few months and so will this game." That lack of a persistent community, one that could link players together in a more mature, more mutually accountable way.... lead to the chaos that most guilds are governed by. Even worse, as one guild or game folded, players had to scurry around and start all over in the next game or the next guild often leaving friends behind or not having ties to their new group.
To solve these problems and take an important next step in the evolution of gaming, Relentless and our founding Elders made the decision to work toward building a community, not a guild. At the heart of our community is The Empirical Code. The Code includes, but is not limited to the following: Valuing players as people, not game characters. Respecting everyone in our community and outside it. Fostering an environment where everyone can feel welcome and safe, no matter what age, gender, religion, or nationality the gamer hails from. Creating a forum where everyone has the right to offer constructive input. Our Code is designed to foster an environment that maximizes the fun of our members and fellow gamers.
The Empire:
The underlying theme of all our guidelines and policies is a simple one. We believe "it is your $12.00 per month, but you are spending it to be part of something greater than the impact any single character in any single game could ever have." We believe games have rules to them beyond what is clearly stated in the manuals that are placed in the box. We believe honor, reputation, courteousness, and community are all goals far greater than level or loot or ladder climbing. We respect rank and value teamwork, we offer leadership and vision beyond how to gain the next level or complete the next game quest.
Many of our members retire from one game or another and still maintain an active and vibrant presence in our community via this website. For us, The Empire is not about the games we play, the games we play are about The Empire. Our community expands together, game to game, server to server... an enduring framework built from the friendships our members have established with each other.
The Empire community was founded on 11/21/01 and since that time we have worked diligently to become one of the world\'s largest and most well-respected online gaming communities. Many of our members have been selected as beta testers for new games, have been offered roles as Team Leads and community liaisons by gaming companies... Relentless was actually flown to San Francisco by Electronic Arts, all at their expense, and asked to be an alpha-tester for Electronic Arts newest title UXO (which eventually end up vaporware unfortunately).
Our single game membership has been as high as 212 active players, but what we are most proud of, are the 100,000+ posts (as of 8/31/08) that have been written on our forums (now on it\'s fourth edition with the fifth currently in the works) by over 1,400 present and former Empire members. All of these posts can be found on our current forums and by accessing our Archived Forums in the weblinks section of this site. These stats are given to demonstrate that The Empire is not a game guild, it is not a company... it is a community.
Whether you are new to online gaming or a hardcore veteran of many games, The Empire is the best gaming community you can join! Our members have gaming experience that encompasses everything from 7 and 8 year old players with absolutely none, to "basement gnomes" with so many thousands of hours spent playing and testing online games for over a decade that their eyes can no longer adjust to sunlight. ;)
Leadership Structure:
The Empire Community, while watched over by our Emperor, Relentless, is governed by our Senate. The Senate meets in a secure forum and consists of all officers of all games that the Empire has an active guild in. Retired officers who are not currently gaming but maintain an active presence on our website are also asked to contribute in our decisions. The Senate has final authority on all matters.
Each game guild that The Empire supports is governed by its own High Council. The Council is comprised of officers from that specific game and is authorized to make all decisions relating solely to that specific game. Of course our Councils often seek and listen to the advice of Empire officers from other games as well.
Our membership consists of gamers from all over the world (20 countries and all U.S. States have been represented at last count), speaking many languages and from a variety of backgrounds and ages ranging from as young as 7 to 60+.
Our officers have each proven their dedication to The Empire through time spent as members, efforts to improve upon the community they joined and an openness toward working together and listening to one another. The decisions reached by our Councils and Senate form the basis of Empire policies which govern day-to-day activities in game and on this website. All Empire members are expected to follow the leadership of our officers.... and those interested are encouraged to apply to become an officer themselves!
All these people, from these widely diverse backgrounds and cultures are brought together by their belief in The Empire, and the values it represents. If you are interested in the play style that we have explained, and you want to have a TON of fun.... let any officer of the Empire know and we will be glad to assist you in obtaining an invitation to join us. Our Web site is www.theempires.com
We look forward to hearing from you and we thank you for your interest in The Empire!
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