Grand Master Report

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Grand Master Report

A report, in which Muz talks about projects that he's been working on forever, talks a bit about the crusade, and then poses a chunky survey for everyone to hit up. Brought to you without fictional introduction by Obelisks Against Reading Good.

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So, over the last month, I have had a few people come to me with proposals for Possessions.

At first, I was a little confused. I thought everyone was aware of the huge undertaking that possessions was (and continues to be for the poor coders), and was at least somewhat knowledgeable about what we have been working towards. But then I recognized that what seemed like yesterday to me was almost six months ago for people, and whole crops of journeymen have shown up since then.

So here's the skinny:

Possessions is a project that I started back when...Jac was GM, so... 7 years ago? The premise is that members will earn credits by ranking up, earning awards and medals. They will be able to spend these credits on various bits of awesome gear. This will include ships and upgrades for the ships, blasters, grenades, other weapons, droids, property, personal effects and other goodies.

Some things will be restricted by prestige rank. Basically, to get at the really good stuff, you'll have to prove that you can use it without screwing up bad. It's kinda the equivalent as to why Bill Gates can't own a aircraft carrier, even though he has the cash to pay for one.

So here is where I tease some images. some of these have been seen before. Others, maybe not.

Severely censored image of the spreadsheet for items showing some of the lightsaber enhancement parts that will be available: <p>

Some personal items: <p>

Some saber crystals: <p>

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The Crusade!

To be fair, guys, I had originally intended for the Crusade to run from January through to the end of the year. Then we had some feuds run long in December, which made it necessary for us to push back the start to February, and then people reminded me that it was the Ten Year Anniversary of the exodus, and that we really should do some independence games.

And then, we're finding that an occasional month off...to relax and for the clans to do fictional development and the like, is very much desired. So the scope of this just keeps getting longer and longer, and I wanted to apologize for that. It's looking more and more like we won't have a GJW until 2014 now.

Anyway, Raken put out the scoring scheme for phase two that we worked out and presented to the Dark Council. The reader's digest version is that each unit will pick teams to 'play for keeps' on the planet, and the rest of the house/clan fights to support the team, to score fleet points for the unit, and to score themselves some novae while not having to compete with the same old dudes who always soak up the awards.

It is an escalation. We said that the later phases would get more difficult, and we were not joking. It's something new, and I think we can get a fair bit of fun out of the model, if we try. If it doesn't work, we always have phase three.

We will be starting the final chapter of Phase One on 17th May, 2013. Theater Selection will start on Wednesday.

We will be taking the entire month of June off from the Crusade. Normal clan competitions and the like will resume. When we come back to the Crusade in July, it will be for phase Two, and the bonus members for that chapter (attachments... see Raken's report) will be granted based on performance and participation in May.

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Several times a year, I've been known to run polls. Usually after big events and sometimes just for a way to make sure that we get a good read on where the club is, and where we're going, we'll put together a series of questions and put them out for anonymous responses.

Sometimes, the trolling is painful, but hey, that's the job.

Anyway, I've put together a kind of general survey that would help Raken and I get a little more information about how you got here, where you are in the club, and where you want to go in the club.

This kind of feedback is great for us to have, since it helps guide what our plans are, and gives us a bit of a high overview over what you, the members, want. So, I'd appreciate it muchly if you'd take a few minutes and check it out.

Click here to take the survey

Thanks again.

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Earlier this month, Drodik had to resign his post as Quaestor for our lightsider house, Odan-Urr. He has done a lot of work trying to set them up fictionally, trying to build a background for them to pull from, and help make a cogent argument for having a lightside house surrounded by darksiders. It's not a terribly easy story to tell, but it has a lot of potential.

Changes of the guard are always bittersweet. It's sad to see the last guy step down, but it's exciting to see what the people who apply for the job are looking to bring to the gig.

Speaking of which, Raken and I had to read through a fair few great applications and decide who best to pick to lead the house.

Liam Torun (formerly known as Kal) will be taking over as Quaestor.

He has his work cut out for him, and we're all watching to see what he can accomplish. Best of luck, Liam.

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Progress:

Watch for news regarding the new site recode from Jamez in the next few weeks. You'll have noticed that we used some of the new site to run the Independence Games. My understanding was that it was to test out some of the functionality of the new code. You probably noticed that it'll help do things like track straight participation, and not just the winners of competitions, which is a bit of a cool deal.

I've also been working with Shikyo and Solari (and their staffs...staves....crew?) to get a Shadow Academy Society put together. Basically, it'll be analogous with the GMRG and the ACC 'elite' societies, but focused on the SA exams, degrees, and the sort.

Mav has taken over from Shadow on the ACC refurbishment... well, it's more of a complete tear-down and rebuild. At any rate, the work on the Character Sheet is well along the path, and it's a pretty cool thing to see, even if it is pretty different from any RP systems I have had experience with in the past. It loos good, and will help people define their character better, i think. Mixed with the new impetus on writing int he ACC, i think we have the makings of a great ACC format coming here.

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Ask the GM time.

Howlader, the Great Panda asks "The timeline (with regard to the new movies) stuff has been talked about a fair bit lately. What are you leaning towards between...staying/accelerating/alternate universe? I'd suggest just alternate universe it up officially, if only because it allows you (and the next guy) the freedom to pick and choose the elements you like from the new movies and ignore the ones that are dumb"

I think that officially, we don't have to pick just yet. In the best case scenario, they use the EU, and we're golden. Worst case scenario, they diverge wildly, and we can retcon or multiverse it up. I'm not completely adverse to doing the 'EU as of 2013' universe, if need dictates. But then again, without George to mess up the films, and Disney recognizing that breaking the fans by throwing aside existing story is bad for the revenues... those films may very well be great.

Archangel asks "Is there going to be an IRC server migration, as Raken and many others have difficulty with getting onto Undernet?" "How vastly different will the new ACC/CS system be from the current system?"

Oooh, a Two-Parter.
1.) If Undernet continues to devolve, we have a plan that we are working on to peel back to a different server. This will likely be DALnet, at this point. We'll keep the DB server that Jam3z worked up for us, but it'll be a last-ditch thing, since there are serious security risks with it. That said, we're not going to make huge changes for just a couple people.

2.) It's going to be pretty different from what we have seen in the past. The character sheets are pretty dramatically different, and they'll feed very well into the new methodology of judging in the ACC. We're going back to roots here. It won't be a rock-paper-scissors thing, nor will it be a 'who has the most points in dexterity' competition. I don't want to spoil too much, as that would be unfair to Mav and his crew, but what I have seen so far makes me happy, and as a fan of the ACC of the 'good old days', I hope that says something.

For having such good questions, Howlader and Archangel are awarded Dark Crosses. Watch next time for when I change my nick on IRC to 'AskTheGM' or email me your questions to get featured and a shining DC for your efforts.

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That's about all for this time. If you need anything, shoot me an email, look me up on TOR or PM me on IRC.

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Liked the report, it had neat stuff; thanks for the info and updates!

"It's kinda the equivalent as to why Bill Gates can't own a aircraft carrier, even though he has the cash to pay for one."

http://brainz.org/news/now-you-can-buy-your-own-aircraft-carrier/4064/

In 2005 he was able to purchase one. But I guess Bill maybe didn't like the colour.

The problem with buying aircraft carriers is that they're not much fun unless you also buy a bunch of aircraft for them and those things aren't cheap either.

Bright red aircraft carrier, anyone? (see also; booster terrik)

Hottest clone trooper of all time! That said I can't wait for possessions to finally open, I've been counting my pennies! XD

Called Liam as QUA?

Called Liam as QUA.

The trouper is hot.

Must make trip to endor now for those ewoks.

Did poll

Anything special for djk and below? That stuff looks like for eq and above

"Anything special for djk and below? That stuff looks like for eq and above "

Most of the stuff on that spreadsheet required DJK, the very special stuff (like multiphase switch is higher). You'll also notice all of that stuff is lightsaber related... DJK being the rank at which you make a saber so it would be pointless to be able to buy components before you can use them.

I assume blades (i.e. swords, knives), blasters and other things journeymen can actually make use of will be purchasable by them.

That screenshot is a very small view of the overall spreadsheet (which, no, I have not seen) I mean... that is just the saber for saber upgrades. Who knows how many tabs there are in total, Muz is a crazy man :P

I blame my kiwi-ism.

"that is just the TAB for saber upgrades."*

'Serious security risks' with our own server.

This isn't 1999.

..and because it isn't 1999, this is why we need our own server.

Regardless of how much better/worse DALnet might be, we'd still be guests on another server with its own policies.

On our own, we can set it how we like.

Just because it isn't 1999 doesn't mean hacks and security risks don't exist anymore; in fact, they're stronger and more dangerous. The Internet doesn't just consist of IRC, derp.

Has no one else noticed that Muz's windows theme is purple?

Krath represent!

There are other colour options?

Locke - That's just his desktop. Win7 lets it bleed through the taskbar. On mine, for instance, you can see the top of my recycle bin, two folders, Daemon Tools Lite, ME, and an RTF document.

Solari - Right click, personalization, its one of the bottom ones. Don't remember which one, and mine has a habit of crashing when I open it. Shouldn't be difficult to find though.

Kave, I was being facetious :P

I also meant to write it as: "There are options other than purple?"

I took your meaning, filthy Krath!

Meh, Krath are like the Protestants of the Sith Religion. They're legitimate, but not the original. Those Obelisk tho... they're Blazer's wet dream. So I guess Blazer is L Ron Hubbard and Obelisks are Scientologists.

Hmm...to get purple, you mix blue and red. So, by that logic, us Krath are the combination of the Sith and Obelisk. Best of both worlds!

No wonder everyone's jealous of us.

I can't take your survey because I am not in any of the listed houses. I am ROGUE.

shoots thayer with an ion cannon Back to sleep, droidboy

Decided to choose Taldryan since it was the first house I went to after the close of Aquillas.

Yo, Kaine. How goes, brother?

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