Some quick FAQs, add more as you can.
When do you play?
Most of the SG either lives in Australia or somewhere around the same timezone (Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand). We do have a few people who play from the states or Europe who play in our timezone when they can. In general we play in the early to late evening at +10:00 GMT. This site is an excellent resource for working out Timezone issues.
We also have a SG night every Wednesday where the New Defenders come out to play as a group or groups and work through the content together. This is also something of a roleplay group, but that can be a little loose at times.
Roleplay?
Yeah. The New Defenders are nearly all Aussie-themed characters. When we play together we try to roleplay in team chat and discuss non-roleplay things in SG mode. No-one is going to jump up and down if you don't do this though … we are Aussies after all :)
Can I join the New Defenders of the Southern Cross?
Sure! Be nice, be considerate, have a sense of humour and don't be an arse. By all means follow our Rules and Regulations, but ultimately it boils down to that. Before you join though, best assess how realistic it is for you to play in the Aussie timezones on a regular basis. The main reason a lot of us are here is that it's too difficult for us to play regularly with people in the US; that goes both ways.
One other thing: most of the New Defenders are aussie-themed. That's by no means mandatory, but it does help the roleplay aspect of the group. If "aussie-themed" is giving you difficulty, a quick perusal of the heroes and their descriptions might give you some ideas.
Who are your recruiters?
Everyone above the lowest rank can recruit. The catch is that we're reasonably popular, so there's not always a free spot in the SG for you to recruit into. Usually a shout out on the Australia channel will bring someone who can boot if necessary. Any characters booted will be sent an email explaining that they've been booted for inactivity and that they're welcome to rejoin if they start playing again.
How many characters can I have in the Defenders of the Southern Cross?
That's a hard one. We've established no formal policy and to date, one hasn't been needed, although we may have to revisit this in the future. Many of us have more than one character in the SG and a few have more. I would encourage anyone wanting more characters than they have in the SG currently to contact the SG leaders or bring it up on our forums. Be sensible.
Who are all these SGs we're in Coalition with? Can I be in a Coalition with your SG?
Most of them are other Australian SGs, most of them established a long time before Coalition chat. Some of them are mostly defunct with only a few regular occasional players, but a rich history like the Paragon City Ascendants. An active SG that we are in coalition with is Trashgallery who also have a lot of Aussies. Their focus is a little different from ours though, and they pretty much recruit from all over. That being said, they're bigger than us (although we're catching up) and they're good folks.
What's the policy on SG-mode?
Please play in SG mode when you can. Below 25 there's no reason not to, and with the advent of inventions no one should be short on influence. The prestige you earn goes to paying for our base and possible expansions to it in the future.
You guys all seem to know what each other is doing! Are you talking to each other outside the game?
Yep. Most activities are arranged on the forums. Yes there are several SGs/VGs referenced on that forum. That's because there's an awful lot of overlap between those groups of people.
Do you have a group on City of Villains?
Yep. S.I.N.I.S.T.E.R is the Aussie VG. The Australian CoX community really got it's act together after the introduction of Global Chat Channels with the Australia channel. Via this channel the disparate aussie SGs on Justice and the aussies on other servers pretty much came together and built the one Aussie VG when CoV was released. That had a noticable effect in that Sinister is larger than any of the CoH Aussie SGs and still has a lot of active players (many of whom are Defenders of the Southern Cross when they're feeling less villainous).
and for the nasty ones:
Can I get some influence? and Can I get a promotion?
We have an open policy regarding recruitment and a fairly laidback attitude in general. That leaves us wide open for abuse if someone was so inclined. These two questions really should be warning signs for anyone with any priviledges in the group. There are legitimate reasons for both these questions, and most times there's no reason not to help them out. All I'm saying is think before you act, and be aware that some people really are pond scum.
