Regent Report #7 - Big Thangs Poppin'

Hello Brotherhood!

This report is full of some very big updates. Get a snack and tuck in!

Changes to the Aspect Policy

The Brotherhood’s Possessions system has matured a lot since it was released. It has grown substantially over those years, particularly in the number of items and the “subsystems” within it. However, some of our policies have remained remarkably unchanged.

Over the last year, I’ve been keenly eyeing the Aspect Policy. There were some things that bothered me about the Policy. I was beginning to feel that the rules we were setting made writing and submitting aspects feel more like a chore than a fun way to customize your items.

We’d made some internal changes to try to loosen up our approach to things. That helped a bit, but it didn’t feel like a big enough jump. After serious appraisal, I felt it was time to make a serious change to the Aspect Policy. So, I put my team to task.

They delivered. As usual. I want to shout out Teebu, who spearheaded this change at my request. Teebu was receptive to feedback and put forth some really key changes to our approach.

So, what's changing? Quite a bit!

Here’s a quick break down of the big items that are changing

• The New Version of the Policy consists of 10 Guidelines - We wanted to keep the new version simple. We consolidated and eliminated some items. All of the rules that apply here previously applied to aspects, so there aren’t new things you’ll have to meet.
  
• The Elimination of “Functional Aspect Rule” - Over half of the rules in the previous policy applied to Functional aspects. The cold hard fact is there aren’t enough Functional aspects remaining in the environment to justify having a whole set of rules. Those that were relevant were merged into the 10 Guidelines.
  
• The Elimination of the “Character Reference” guideline - I spent a long time thinking about this. I kept coming back to one example. Han Solo’s blaster. What makes the DL-44 blaster so cool? It’s about 30% design and 70% the user. What makes that gun so cool is that Han Solo uses it. Our aspect policy was bereft of the feeling of “this gun is mine”. After careful consideration, we’ve removed it entirely. This doesn’t mean you can include pages of lore about your possessions in aspects, but you can say they are yours. We encourage use of the {{owner}} tag while writing aspects. This will change the name with the character they are equipped to.
  
• The introduction of “Item Environment” - You now have two ways to describe your items. You can describe them “as if behind glass at a museum” or you can describe them as “equipped”. Some items just don’t feel right being described in a sterile environment, for example a form fitting dress or skintight ninja outfit befit from being described on the character wearing them.
  
• Custom and Unique Items - Not all custom aspects are equal. Some offer more leeway than others. We’ve clarified some of the more unique aspect types that can be submitted. The remaining “functional aspects” that exist in the wild will be treated by the staff as Custom and unique items. The policies regarding these lean heavily on the “Item type description” verbiage. We’ll treat these on a case by case basis. Some examples of Custom and Unique items are: Robes, Lightsabers, Poison, Droid personalities.
  

I highly encourage you all to take a look at the new version of the Item Aspect Approval Policy. We sincerely hope this new version of the policy makes writing Aspects feel more approachable and more personal.

As a general reminder, if something is remanded, the staff isn’t trying to be mean, we’re looking to make it fit within the rules. I’ve directed my staff to take extra steps to help aspect writers find ways to make their aspects fit within the rules. We want to make aspects easier and be more engaged in getting your aspects approved. So, if one of the Regent Staff or myself reaches out to you regarding an aspect, don’t be too surprised!

Upgrades 2.0

Way back in April of 2025, I announced a change to how Upgrades work for Space and Land vehicles. In that same report, I indicated that this was just phase 1 of a bigger project.

Well…Phase 2 has begun implementation. It will be rolling out in the coming days and weeks.

This project is gargantuan in scope. Anubis had been working on this project for months. With assistance from Korvis, this project is approaching the finish line. The amount of work that went into this conversion is truly staggering. This might be one of the largest projects in Possessions history. I want to acknowledge my team, particularly Anubis and Korvis for all the hard work they put in. This would not be possible without your hard work. A sincere thank you to both of you.

Here’s the change in a nutshell:

Droids, Armor, and Weapons presently have selectable upgrades as aspects. That is changing. Once fully implemented upgrades for Droids, Armor and Weapons will be purchasable just like upgrades for Starships.

Some things to know:

• Moving to purchasable upgrades for these items allow for greater customization of your items. Legendary Upgrades can go on Uncommon items. If there are two upgrades of the same type that you really want, you can add both if the item has free slots.
  
• Converting upgrades into purchasable items makes it easier for the staff to add new options. We’ll be releasing an Upgrade specific suggestion box, so that you’ll be able to suggest the upgrades that you want.
  
• The initial launch items are the same as the aspect upgrades.
  
• 79 Armor Upgrades at Launch
• 79 Droid Upgrades at Launch
• 80 Ranged Weapon Upgrades at Launch
• 62 Melee Weapon Upgrades at Launch
• More will be coming in the future, including upgrades that are Society specific. The GMRG will be the first to see unique society upgrades released.
  
• Three Brand New Stores! See below!
• Upgrades for these items are inexpensive, some are as low as 120 credits and max out at around 5000 credits for the awesome legendary upgrades.
  
• Some items will retain selectable aspects - Lightsaber Upgrades, Mandalorian Vambrace Upgrades, Slugthrower/Projectile/Explosive Weapons ammunition type, and Poison upgrades are not going to be made purchasable. These will remain selectable.
  
• Granted Aspects, such as Lightsaber Resistance (Beskar, Phrik, etc) will remain as aspects. That may change in the future, however for now these are still controlled by the Regent's Staff and the Rarity Primer.

Upgrades Slots will generally follow the pattern of the number of aspects that an item has at present. These are preliminary numbers and are subject to change in the future. Generally, it will appear as below.

Item Rarity	Slot Size (Number of Upgrades)
Common	1
Uncommon	2
Rare	3
Epic	4
Legendary	4
Masterwork	5

*Three new stores will be available. *

• Sandcrawler Surplus will sell Droid upgrades.
• Sector 7 Defense will sell Armor upgrades.
• TK Tactical will sell weapon upgrades.

These stores will open as each set of upgrades is released.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM THE REGENT:

As Regent, I understand that your credits are hard earned. Yet again, we’ve introduced another way for those to be spent and now you have to buy more things! That has not gone unnoticed.

Our goal in this project is not to squeeze you out of every penny you've earned. The goal of this change is to open up your possessions to be customized however you like. Accordingly, I will be issuing a Credit Bonus to compensate you for the transition to this new system.

Rank	JM4	EQ1	EQ3	EQ4	EL1
Bonus Credits	25000	35000	45000	55000	65000

The Credit bonus is based upon the average value of an upgrade and the thresholds to acquire new character slots. Your Bonus corresponds to your rank at the time of the award. These are not cumulative. The bonuses are flat rate. This will be a one time grant.

You are free to spend these credits on upgrades, or if you so choose, you can spend them on other items.

Since we are working with hundreds of prototypes, final implementation will take time. As each of these new upgrade systems go live, I will post supplemental to this report. Likewise, I will post when the credit award bonus is disbursed. We’re hoping to have this completely rolled out by the end of March.

We’re very excited about the possibilities this brings for item customization.

Thoughts from the Regent and Glimpses of the Future

I have been Regent for nearly 18 months. In that time, we’ve taken on some major changes to possessions. These changes mark some of the most sweeping changes ever made to the Possessions system. We aren’t done.

As Regent, I am always looking at ways to put more credits in your hands.

I can’t divulge too much about my plans, but we have more big changes coming in the future that will greatly assist in filling your wallets. What I will say is that in the near future, there will be additional policy changes which will specifically tackle that. I am pretty excited about this change. When it’s time to give you details, I’ll share them in full.

Now that we’ve got some big items off our plates, I’m looking towards new projects. We have a few lined up. One of my big focuses will be on trying to improve the user experience and add some polish to the interfaces that you use to interact with possessions. This will take time, but hopefully in the end we’ll make Possessions even better.

We’ve got a new Booster Release slated for May 4th/Celebration. No spoilers, but there are some long requested items in the release.

I’ll also be turning my attention back to a project that got kicked to the back burner; Custom Space Stations! More information on that coming in the future.

Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for my updates on Upgrades!

Thank you for reading and remember: any questions relating to the Possessions system, item mechanics, or features can be emailed to Regent Staff at [Log in to view e-mail addresses].

Important Links:
* Item Research
* Item Stores
* Item Aspect Approval Policy
* Item Prototype Approval Policy
* Regent Suggestion Box
* Item Error Reporting Box