Arx ** The Dark Ascent**
Master at Arms Office
40 ABY

Marick Tyris Arconae — Current Exarch and former Voice of the Brotherhood — blinked once as he stared across the Master at Arms desk. The office was decorated in a very black-and-white color scheme, with the desk being the most prominent feature. And of course, the robed man who sat behind it.

“Done,” Howlader Taldrya declared as he stamped down his personal wax seal onto the very formal looking envelope.

“...what do you mean, ‘done’?” Marick asked.

“I mean, it’s done. The Envoy Corps is now certified. Funds and inventory have been approved by the Regent, resources have been allocated from the Inquisitorius, The Grand Master signed off, yada, yada, yada. ”

“So I’m good to go?” Marick asked one more time,

“What do you think this is, the Department of Space Vehicles?” the older man made a dismissive gesture as he rolled his eyes.

Marick gave that some consideration. The lines and processes for the DSV were long and tedious, indeed.

“Alright then, I appreciate your time and attention.” The Hapan bowed his head, took the envelope, and tucked it into the folds of his robes.

Exarch Report 05

Hello from the otter other side! Earlier this week, we formally launched the Envoy Corps fully with ranks to unlock, possessions items to acquire, CS Feats to gain, and more. This report will mostly serve as a follow up and address some of the day-one “patches” we’ve deployed to the RP Society / Trophy system.

For a recap of the Envoy Corps system launch, please see the Exarch Report 04. For pre-launch and thank yous to all the people that have helped and you should be thanking, see Exarch Report 03.

Table of Contents

• Development
• Staffing Update
• Helpful Resources
• Closing

Development

So, no amount of preparation and planning survives first contact with the enemy production. The Exarch team did a lot of practical statistical projection (thanks Teebu), and a lot of design discussions around balance, time to hitting rank 12, and so on. We tested in Dev (Jame’s test server), and then rolled out into Production (aka, the live website that we use every day). As such, there were a few wrinkles we had to iron out. But also some nice quality of life updates that James was able to whip up!

CS Feats for NPCs

James has updated the coding to allow CS Feats to apply to NPCs. Great success.

Rank Point Adjustments

As I mentioned, there was a table copy/paste error in entering the formula for Envoy Marks. So for the “Players Gonna Play” Trophy, you might notice you jumped ahead a rank. You’re, uh, welcome. (Totally meant to do that...)

Trophy Images swapped

Similarly, in my excitement to get things to James in a timely manner, my dyslexia apparently applied to an entire graphical concept and I named the “DM + Board” silhouette PlayerTrophy.file, and the Mando-table-top-figure silhouette YouCanTry.file. Oops.

James was kind enough to switch this around. We don’t deserve him.

We’re Going Streaking

You might start to do some additional math and wonder, “Wait, I’ve only done 3 RPs. How do I have 6 Envoy Marks”.

This has to do with how we coded “streaks” to work.

So, if you do 3 RPs, but space them out over the course of 6 months with 1 month between each, the formula is still going to count that as a “streak”, because it would be “3 streaks of 1 month.

Going off the above example:

• 3 RPs participated = 3 Marks
• 3 streaks of 1 month = 3 Marks
• Total: 6 Marks

Likewise, if you do consecutive RPs within a month, you'll get more of a bonus! While this might seem weird, we felt this was a way to incentivise members, and help propel them through ranks quicker while rewarding coming back to the RP table, so to speak, again and again. Might not make everyone happy, but I agree with the philosophy that anything that gives our members “more” value is a good design theory.

Supplemental Societies

When setting up the Envoy Corps and designing a dual-branching path of rewards, we knew there would be some challenges with...explaining a new kind of system. One of those core ones is “what do we call what we’re making?”. “How is this the same but different than the existing “Societies”?

To make things simple, from a coding perspective, there are now two kinds of Societies: Primary and Supplemental.

Society Progress Display

You view this page by going to:

Administration → Progress → Society Progress.

This will not only show you your progress to your next trophy rank, but will also tell you what reward will be unlocked when you hit it! It also shows you some progress statistics. The percentage shown in your progress is between your current rank and the next, not necessarily your total points earned/needed. If that seems confusing at first, let me try and break it down.

So, for example:

The first number, (A), shows how many Envoy Marks you've earned since the previous rank (10), which would have been 33 Marks.

The second number, (B), shows how many Envoy marks are needed to reach the next rank (11), which would be 45 Marks.

So, from 33 points to 45 points, my 38 Points puts me at 41.67% of the way towards my next rank. Or, you can think of it as your points reset to “0” at each rank in the site's backend... and there are 12 numbers between 33 and 45.

Basically, don't think too hard about the math, and just trust that James' code did the thinking for you. That’s what I’m doing at least, because I went to art school specifically to avoid math like this.

Staffing Update: Help Wanted!

I’d like to congratulate Teebu on his recent AK that I was honored to contribute to. Teebu came up clutch when needed and is probably why the Envoy Corps numbers only needed minor tweaks after launch. With that said, Teebu and I talked, and we think it’s time for him to move on from the staff so he can continue to work on other technical projects he wants to pursue. Thanks for everything Teebu — who will actually stay in the staff chat to serve as a consultant.

This means we’re going to be looking for a new Exarch Staff team member!

The goal of these positions is to be, for lack of a better term, community managers. Exarch Staff should be excited, knowledgeable, and ready to help others when it comes to getting started, playing, or improving their roleplaying activities!

Per the wiki, the responsibilities are:

• Be available and present in '''#rp-lobby''' to help answer questions and assist members with setting up, running, and closing RP activity.
• Willing to help run and co-run RP activities for and with members that are interested in running an RP.
• Review and approve RP activity for processing of CIs (this workflow will become automated but still will require staff-eyes on any log before its submitted to the site).
• Assist the Exarch with creating wiki documentation, guides, and SA course material for the Brotherhood’s roleplaying efforts. ** Bonus for having experience working with the DB Wiki.
• Assist the Exarch with improving the Envoy Corps Supplemental Society in regards to user experience, features, and growth opportunities.
• Have a voice inside of Exarch Staff chat when discussing new features, ideas, and opportunities.
• Help run Exarch-sponsored RPs themed around the [[Envoy Corps]]' fictional flavor. ** Bonus points for being willing to use and keep up with a project tracking document/platform (Trello).

If you’re interested in joining the team, please email me at [Log in to view e-mail addresses]. Your application can be as simple or as complex as you’d like, but mostly I’d like to know:

1. What about the RP Supplemental Society are you most excited about
2. Confirm your interest and comfort with running or learning to run Roleplaying activities.
3. Any ideas you might have for how to elevate the experience or broaden the system's appeal.

Apps will remain open until 3/18/2023, but I reserve the right to close applications early, or extend them, if I find someone that I think fits.

Helpful Resources

You can find everything you need in Roleplaying Handbook Wiki. This page hosts links to Exarch Resources such as maps, rulesets, system types, and information about Role Playing activities the Brotherhood.

Some useful pages to bookmark:

• Exarch Resources Google Drive Folder
• Envoy Corps Wiki
• Character Sheet Reference Tool

Changelog

* Society progress page
* Supplementary Society verbiage for Envoy Corps trophy progression
* XP mapped to progression
* “Players Gonna Play” Rank point requirements adjusted (members gain only a boost, no backwards progress applied)
* Envoy Corps CS Feats apply to NPCs now
* Swapped the images for “Player’s Going to Play” Trophy and “You Can Certainly Try” Trophy

Closing

That’s all for now. Thank you again to everyone for your patience and excitement, and I hope all the work we’ve done here gets you, at the very least, willing to try out RP activities.

-W