-> ## Tribune Update <-

Has been a while since I released an actual report – just over a month now, but I always tend to release these sporadically in favor of announcing new items as they come up. Hopefully everyone enjoyed last month’s competition. As I stated in my news post, there was a lot of participation – something like 1100 matches played and was that ever a bitch to track and reward when the view scores page kept timing out. I did manage to work it all out and medals have been rewarded. Congratulations to everyone who participated and especially to those who managed to place in one of the tiers.

A lot of things are in the works at the moment, but most of them are still in the behind-the-scenes phase. It’s a crappy phase, but a necessary one for some of the projects that are being developed.

-> ## News <-

March Gaming Competition

I announced the details this just before March, but people can always use a refresher. The Crazy Random Assassination Problem is in full swing, with the first phase ending this Sunday. Your duty as sycophantic Dark Jedi assassins is to target as many members of the gaming community as possible in the hope that you manage to take out someone who is actually on the Tribune’s hit list.

I’ve had a few questions about this, so I figured I’d explain it a bit further. Each week I choose 5 gamers at random – from a variety of platforms so everyone has a chance – and announce who they are after the week of gaming. If you played against any of these persons and won you’ll earn points. Each week the top three members with the most points will be rewarded with Crescents. If you have any other questions just catch me on IRC or leave a comment on this report. Rest of the information can be found at the link below. Oh, and to make things a little more interesting, I’m going to try to adding some clues to who the targets are for next week. Make sure to check out my next news post.

March Details

One final thing I want to say about this new competition. It was brought to my attention that someone believed I had ripped off one of their ideas without giving them credit. Now, instead of doing the reasonable thing of approaching me to discuss it, this member (and no, I wasn’t told who it was) decided to go straight to Sarin and Muz. I can’t really see a good reason for doing that, unless the plan was to get me in trouble… weird, huh? The fact is, this competition was based on one I ran as a Battle team Sergeant in November of 2004. So if you did run a competition like this before that time then I apologize, but I still didn’t copy it – it was just something I thought would be fun.

Now, if you made your competition after mine, I would like to suggest you not rip me off – I’d hate to have to go to Sarin and Muz about it. That would just suck.

ICTE Update

This upcoming ICTE will feature double CFs for all matches played, so if you’re struggling towards that next promotion this Saturday will be a good chance to earn some much needed medals.

Aside from that, ICTE is still going strong, though I did want to mention one thing about how All-Star and the other two placings are decided. To qualify you have to earn at least 12 CFs and play AGAINST a minimum of 7 people. So if you’re counting members of your own team you’ll find yourself some opponents shy.

As always, if you want to view results for past ICTEs you can find them on the ICTE site under the archives link.

Team Empire at War

So, I’m not really sure when or how it happened, but Empire at War has become one of the main platforms played for the ICTE, and sees quite a bit of action during the regular gaming nights as well. A little background information is required for the rest of this. Basically, when deciding how many Clusters of Fire to award for each platform, we tried to take into account how many matches two people can play in a standard JO game and compare that to how long an EaW matches takes. Sure, JO and JA matches can differ greatly based on the skill of the participants, but on average it’s a lot quicker to play JO/JA than EaW.

This theory was also applied to team matches. A 2v2 match of EaW earns the two winning players 6 CFs each. In a 4v4 match the winners each earn 12 CFs – for a single match that, because of the way EaW is played, is not really much longer than a 1v1 match. Now that EaW is so popular in the ICTE, the only people who manage to place or earn All-Star are those who win a few games of team EaW, which is really unfair to the people who are playing twice as many JO or JA matches.

To fix this oversight, I’m going to develop a new formula for the CF awarding of team EaW matches. This is fair warning to all who play the game – If you want to have some sort of say in the new system you should leave your comments in this report or email me directly. The most likely outcome is reducing team matches to just a bit more than a 1v1 match – say 4.5 CFs for a win for any team match played. If people don’t comment then I’ll go ahead with what I feel is best, so if you care then speak up.

The Etcetera

Brotherhood server discussion

As posted a while back. Duga made the suggestion to me that we get some feedback on our gaming servers. If you wish to add your comments check out that forum.

Allegiance Tourney

Yadar came to me asking if I could run an Allegiance tournament. I told him to first see what kind of interest there was in it, which so far hasn’t been much. For some time Allegiance was included amongst the Brotherhood’s gaming platforms (I have no idea why) and it never really picked up. Aside from being a free multiplayer game, installation was a major problem for most people, and the game was developed around the idea of large team matches – something the DB just can’t seem to do.

Sometimes things get missed or forgotten when we get overly accustomed to the DB’s fast-paced changes. One of these things is the fact that at current, the Gaming Nights run from Monday to Friday and Sunday. Every week. Every month. Including ICTE, gaming can be done every day of the week – so if you ever feel that itch to find some matches, you’re free to do so whenever you want.

-> ## Useful Links <-

Rites of Combat

Gaming Nights Information

Brotherhood Servers

ICTE Information

ICTE Site