Message from the Fist

Hello DB. I’m back from my first trip to California. Most people come here for a vacation. I came here for other reasons. It was a tough month, and it’s good to be home.

Edgar did a great job of holding down the fort while I was gone. His February report covered a lot of great info, and I appreciate him keeping the trains running on time while I was gone. I’ve got another training event at the end of this month, so he’ll be back at the helm in April while I’m enjoying another 30 days of fun in the Mojave.

There’s obviously been a lot going on the past few weeks. Grand Master Pravus has retired for the second time, and Mav has assumed the Iron Throne, with Vyr taking over as DGM. Pravus’ tenure as Grand Master was filled with new systems, changes to existing systems, and other great things. For that, he was awarded his second Golden Lightsaber. I’m excited to see what Mav has in store for us in the future.

Plenty to cover this month. Couple of gaming changes, updates to an older platform, another discussion on how games get approved, competitions list, discussion on staff rotation, and a few other goodies.

Let’s do this.

Gaming Updates

Diablo 3

In order to keep things as fresh as I can with a nearly six year old game, I’m giving some additional incentive for all of you to challenge yourselves as you continue your never-ending grind for gear.

Effective immediately, a new Hardcore modifier is available for those who choose to run a HC character. Hardcore now nets a x2 modifier for normal and greater rifts, so if you’ve ever wanted to really challenge yourself, now is the time to do it!

StarCraft 2

Just a reminder, as I mentioned in Fist Supplemental 16.6, there are no longer difficulty modifiers for the PvE cooperative missions. There was simply no way to prove what difficulty everyone was playing on, so I had no choice but to remove those modifiers.

PoBs for Hearthstone

Hearthstone is still running strong as our replacement for Pazaak. Since launch, there have been 85 submissions via the Fist Bot. That does not take into account the number of matches per submission, but most of you are playing between 3 and 12.

Because of its popularity and completely free nature, I have decided to add Pendants of Blood for Hearthstone. Here’s how it works:

• You get one pendant of blood for each character you level to 25.
  
• There are a maximum of six pendants of blood available for this platform. You can choose which six characters you submit for, but once you earn six pendants, that’s it.
  
• You must provide a screenshot showing the character and level
• You must put which character you are submitting for in the submission.
  

This screenshot (or something like it) is what we are looking for. This is from the mobile version:

Titanfall 2 Removal

With only a single submission over the past two weeks, I have made the decision to remove Titanfall 2 from our library of supported games. From this point forward, no clusters of fire or pendants of blood are available for playing this game.

In the event that Titanfall 2 becomes active among DJB gamers again, I will review the activity and make a recommendation to the GM and DGM on returning it to active status.

DJB Wide- Gaming Competitions:

• [FIST] Monthly Gaming-March : ( Stacker Mahjong 3D-Mobile ** StarCraft II- Episode 1 Basic Challenge ** Flash Game- Jet Cat ** Hearthstone )

• Diablo 3: Season 13 : ( Solo Greater Rift ** Solo Greater Rift (Hardcore) ** First to Seasonal Completion ** Highest Level Survived (Hardcore) )

• Brotherhood Gaming League: Season 1 : ( Jedi Academy ** Heroes of the Storm ** Overwatch )

• Gorefest- March 2018

Staff Rotation

Prior to GJW XII, I made the decision to stop rotating my staff positions. I did this to provide some stability during the GJW and the two long field exercises I was going to be at. With those almost complete, I am going to re-institute the rotation of my staff positions. All positions will open up at some point from June to August, so keep an eye out. Here’s how the position rotation will work:

Praetor: P:FIST will be a one year (max) gig that will open up on 1 June. The person selected for Praetor will be in charge of managing the magistrates, specifically on DJB-Wide gaming competition creation, and processing of gaming submissions. Additionally, I will expect the praetor to write a monthly report discussing game updates, sales, and other general gaming knowledge. Edgar, the current Praetor has done some outstanding work over the past year. The person who takes over will have some big shoes to fill.

Magistrates: These are six month positions. I have three magistrates. Donny and Juna will rotate out sometime between June and September, staggered so I don’t have two brand new staff positions open at once. Alaris is only two months into his term, so he will stay for a bit longer. Magistrates do the day to day work in the office. They process gaming submissions in less than 24 hours, run DB-Wide gaming competitions, and review and edit wiki pages where needed.

I hope that all of you take a chance to apply when these positions open up. This is a great opportunity to work on a DC staff and learn how it functions.

Weekly/Saturday Pendants of Blood

Weekly PoBs

• 28 Jan-2 Feb: Rulvak

• 4-9 Feb: Rulvak

• 11-16 Feb: Kelly

• 18-24 Feb: Only four people played. Matches rolled forward to next week.

Saturday PoBs

• 3 Feb: Grot

• 10 Feb: No matches played

• 17 Feb: No matches played

• 24 Feb: No matches played

Admin and Policy Reminders

• Gifs, stickers, images, charity solicitations, and being a jerk are all banned from DB Gaming. The Gif, Sticker, and image ban is non-negotiable. I stated in this news post what the rules of engagement were. I have now made it relatively simple: Only admins can post images. If you have something you think should be posted, ask me or a member of my staff.

• The staff has 24 hours from the time you submit gaming activity to approve it. If your submission has been sitting for longer than that, there is a problem. If it hasn’t, there is no problem. The staff do their best to process gaming submissions as quickly as possible, but they are real people with real lives. I do not expect them to sit behind a computer processing gaming submissions all day, and neither should any of you.

• Solo submissions are never acceptable for Clusters of Earth/Fire. My staff and I will reject any that come in. You must play with at least one other DB member, no exceptions. This is not changing any time in the near (or far) future.

• Pendants of Blood are not acceptable for submission to cluster-counting competitions. If we see them, we will remand the request.

• Reminder: Feel free to run Gaming competitions DB wide. Gaming is a slightly different community, and is one of the few that consistently brings club members together outside of the competitive environment. Most of the people I currently game are all in different clans. By opening up your event DB-wide, you increase the pool of possible participants, which could allow for a crescent upgrade!

• Reminder: While I sincerely appreciate having proposals/great ideas sent to me via telegram, please email the staff list (email is at the bottom of this report). I ask that your House and Clan leadership take a look at your proposals before you send them up. This isn’t to add a layer of bureaucracy, it’s because I’m sure they’d like to know how you are trying to help the club improve...helps with award and promotion recommendations and all that. Feel free to cc them on your email to me and my staff.

Helpful Links

• [DB Gaming on Telegram - Log in to view join link] on Telegram. Come be part of the discussion in the one and only official gaming channel of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood!

• Send us an email at [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

TL;DR

1. I am home. But I will leave again.
2. Buff for D3, PoBs for HS, Removal of TF2
3. Competitions galore
4. Staff Rotation coming back

It’s great to be home, even though I’ll be heading back out again in about three weeks. Moving to Hawaii is on the back end of all this training, so I do have that to look forward to. In other news:

I did buy Monster Hunter World.

Yes, I like it.

It still won’t work with the DB’s gaming system. So no matter how many times you beg, it’s probably not getting supported.

But...it is fun.

Anyhoo, until next month, keep on gaming!

-Dracpool, out.