Voice of the Brotherhood: Report 14

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Voice of the Brotherhood: Report 14

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It seems a year as Voice has passed for me, so I took the opportunity to take a look at where things are at today, and put together a plan to move forward from here. I shared this with the Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master and we have an agreed on vision of what things should look like by the end of the year. It’s a plan that shores up different fictional areas over the coming half a year and I’ll get into that in this report. I’ll also share some details on where we’re at on possessions.

Voice Staff Updates

  • Antei Combat Center: No review of the Voice staff would be complete without discussing Wally. He has done a great job of focusing on projects to drive more members to the ACC and to maintain a high-quality experience for members seeking to participate in it. This includes sustaining a well-trained and effective staff of judges. Priorities here remain the same, and projects which achieve these goals will continue to see full support.

  • Magistrates: For the past year both Arden and Xen have done everything asked of them as members of the staff. However, for many different reasons, I will be seeking replacements for both of them on my staff and will be opening applications for two new Magistrates to serve until at least the end of the year or longer to achieve a specific set of goals and training. I hope that the new Magistrates, in addition to bringing a fresh perspective to the staff, will find the position a great opportunity to learn the Character Sheet approval process, Fiction Competition administration and future Possession Aspect approval systems while adding value to the entire membership by helping accomplish a set of staff projects.

  • Praetor: I have no plans to replace my Praetor, and Atra will continue to serve on the staff. I continue to include him on nearly every discussion I am part of that pertains to the staff, and keep him fully engaged as much as possible both in the direction of the office and its priorities as well as helping to set them. In the interests of the membership of whom I serve, consistency is key, and I’ve seen countless debates on if Praetor is intended to someday replace the Dark Councilor who they work with, but the position is in all instances either a replacement or a valuable resource for the incoming Dark Councilor in my opinion.

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Magistrate: Voice (M:VOICE) Applications

I can only hope that the entire membership would love to come work on the Voice staff and help make decisions day to day on people’s characters, fictional opportunities, or the nuanced details of a Force push versus a Force shove, and I’m hoping regardless of who you are you take the opportunity to apply if you’re interested and make it clear to me why I’d be crazy not to give you a chance to make the Brotherhood a more awesome place.

I won’t list out any minimum requirements, though I will list out what the expectations will be so that you can make a decision if you think it’s something you’re interested in though you’re welcome to ask me any questions you might have. This will help you perhaps figure out what type of information you might include in an application to help reflect your abilities to accomplish these expectations.

Expectations:

  • Approve, remand or reject Character Sheet requests by membership, doing so consistently and in accordance with Voice staff policy. Proving feedback as applicable to help improve Characters across the Brotherhood.

  • Approve, remand or reject Fiction Competition requests by membership for Cluster of Ice awarding, and doing so consistently and in accordance with Voice staff policy.

  • Approve, remand or reject Aspects of Items in the Possessions system during the future Possessions Beta that should fall within the coming term. Helping to shape the policy surrounding this and setting baseline expectations for this new feature for membership.

  • Participate in discussions as brought up at least over email by the staff, though we do maintain a Telegram channel for responses I am equally responsive in both, to help make sound decisions regarding the above as they come to the staff.

  • Participate in and complete tasks as assigned towards projects as taken on and prioritized as a staff. Please review below, but this will include policy discussions, rank discussions, and Character Sheet guides for the remainder of the year.

  • A level head and ability to take criticism, and handle yourself with a high level of integrity and professionalism is definitely preferred as interactions with our staff among members can have a profound impact on their experience with the Brotherhood.

If you’d like to apply, please send any relevant information in application form to myself and Atra ideally with a topic relevant subject. I will hold applications open for two weeks and start decision-making on June 22nd. You can send it in any time up until an announcement is made, but on the 22nd I will start to make decisions on how to staff the team up.

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Staff Projects

  • Wiki Updates: This is already ongoing with regards to Order wiki pages with some great progress, despite the Shadow Academy consuming resources I had working on it. This project will eventually see a full update of the Order, Path, and Traditions wiki pages to properly reflect information for members who are making decisions between these for their characters. This will also include some navigation improvements possible Traditions expansion to help give options to members proactively from Canon.

  • Policy Updates: This list already exists and I’m working through it with Atra. This formalizes some existing non-documented decision-making processes and helps better define what is what from a Brotherhood Canon perspective. All of these will go before the Dark Summit before they become official and see Grand Master Approval. Without too many details the full list being written are: Artifact Guidelines, Canon Guidelines, Item Aspect Approval Guidelines, Species Guidelines and Language Guidelines.

  • Rank Review: I think we all have an opinion on the current rank names post expansion. Somewhere in the middle of our priorities is a full review of the ranks. If you have any opinions please share them with me and I’ll take them into consideration and document them as we do a full review and present any recommendations as a staff on changes to the Grand Master.

  • NFU Discipline Expansion: Mav and Wally have already begun this process with Field Medic and Weapon Specialist, but with more and more non-Force using characters being created, there has been a need to expand on the different Disciplines that exist across that group fictionally within Star Wars. I hope it will help provide a larger selection for members to find what they’re looking for when developing their character.

  • Character Sheet Guide Expansion: This already exists on the wiki in many ways, and segments, but it needs a full review and overhaul with sub-guides being written in certain areas just to help give members content to consume and help make decisions about building their Character Sheet even if just as a really solid ideas board to spark ideas on how to do so.

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Possessions

  • Current State: We have compiled everything in one place, with a list of over 750 different items being worked on. These have been defined based on what slots members will have available to them and what exists in Star Wars Canon while retaining a certain amount of DJB Canon specifically where it made sense. This includes a plan for how we will approach beta for Clans and how they will go about purchasing and fielding armed forces. A list of different Aspects have been identified and have been pre-populated with a quality set of options for members to test functionality. The entire operation of the possessions system is now documented in a rather lengthy powerpoint that will eventually see it’s way to the wiki prior to launch.

  • Next Steps: Now that the entire structure is documented, and how possessions will function, the next step is to balance the entire system. What types of items will a JM3 be buying? How much buying power should a new recipient of a Sapphire Blade get? What type of ship would a newly minted JM4 buy, what type of ship would an EQ4 be able to purchase? How should a rare blaster pistol compare to a common blaster pistol to make one feel sufficiently awesome to warrant the extra credits? How many more credits should this cost? How to handle society items or Herald designed items and how will they be displays on the member dossier. All these things feed into the member experience and that’s what’s being discussed now with a great amount of progress.

  • Post Experience: After the experience is documented, we adjust the item list expanding as needed and get all the items into the site, set up stores, code the slotting, get graphics kicked off, get salaries setup for beta, get costs all setup in the store and then kick off a beta and start to populate stores and see what happens. It’ll be a great day.

I’ll continue to maintaining a small team to keep these decisions moving forward and get this going. If nothing else, there’s a lot of documentation now.

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Inquisitorius Competition

The Voice staff organized and run competition Inquisitorius - I Have a List of People is still running themed after the current status of the Brotherhood story, where your character is trying to obtain a list of Jedi sympathizers to use for good or evil. There are 10 more days to get your entry in.

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Conclusion

I’m trying to carefully balance character and fictional experience with getting possessions launched, both of which are of great benefit to members in the grander goal of providing an enjoyable Star Wars experience for members. I am hoping I can accomplish it all, and I hope you all consider applying to join the staff as well to be part of it all.

In darkness,

Evant Taelyan
Voice of the Brotherhood

Woo! Excellent report. Very intrigued by the rank review.

Nice.

plays the mcdonald commercial I'm lovin' it! Good luck to all who apply for a staff position, I can assure you from my own experiences it is well worth it.

Interesting.

Been a pleasure working with the current team, and I thank them for all their efforts.

As for who is to come, I look forward to the new victims--I mean trainees.

Now now now, the remaining Voice staff doesn't bite. They're all really nice people who don't torture anyone and feed you all the time.

Glances back at Atra and Evant

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