Report time...and this one is a doozy.

The Rite of Supremacy is over! After a harrowing nearly two-months, the vendetta is just about finalized. The placings for the event went out earlier last week, and the final stuff is being finished up. Seals should be showing up soonish. Congratulations to everyne for fighting so hard and making things difficult on me as I tried to judge things quickly.

Several of the rewards are in the works: the armed forces points went out to the DC, and we've decided to revise the plan before buying new stuff. Also, there's the matter of awards for first and second place units. As promised before,t he First place unit will be able to get an exclusive sabe and robe added to their member's selectors. The second place unit was to recieve either a new exclusive saber or robe.

To that end, Independent House Revan is receiving the 'Revanchist' robes and the 'Message' Lightsaber.

Revan's selector code needs tweaking, since it is the first time that we have had a house-only saber or robe, it didn't want to work right for me. It should be debugged soon. Taldryan will be receiving the 'Tundra' lightsaber.

There are several major promotions coming out today. Each of the people have done quite a lot to help enhance the brotherhood and bring it to the place that it is today. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, and done by people that are not showboating or gunning for glory themselves. Arion is one such member. With his tireless hours working on code and helping to advance things in the Shadow Academy in addition to his work to make the new Independent House Revan work, he has made an indelible mark on the Brotherhood. It is easy to see where his hand has touched, and it is for that, and for the many fine words his friends have said about him in his reccommendation that we recognize him as an Elder of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.

Subtlety and surety is another mark of those who know that they do not have to cause havoc to get stuff done. As an advisor for the Dark Council for the better part of ten years, Troutrooper has long been considered a mitigating voice and a solid ear on projects in the brotherhood. Yet, while he works dilligently behind the scenes, he also finds the time to bring his a-game during vendetta events. Trout came to us late from the hammer, and lost DJM when he did so, a sacrifice that he felt was needed for his own sanity and for our advantage. I am pleased to say that today, we restore to Trout the very well-earned rank of Dark Jedi Master.

There's not much subtle or quiet about our Herald. Graphics are such an integral part of any web-club, that it is hard to ignore one who does such good works over such a long period of time. Shikyo Has been our Herald for more than two years, a record only bested by Kaine Mandaala. In that time, he has picked up where I left off, continuing to advance our graphical projects, in things like Herald Style Hannukhah where we grossly amplify the choices available to the members, to projects like the headshot selector and possessions, major projects that require intense amount of man hours that have yet to pose their impact on the club. Shikyo has definitely made a name for himself, and the club would not be as good a place without his work. for that work, he is to be elevated from the Equites and take his place among the elders as a Dark Side Adept.

It's been busy here, not only with the crazy hours i have been working IRL and getting the RoS stuff out the door, but also in terms of other projects. Kaek's retirement speech mentioned something about how I don't tell the membership that much about what i am working on until it's go-time. He's absolutely correct in that. But there's a reason for that. I am not trying to cut the members out of the loop so much as I am trying to make sure that no one is disappointed.

For those of us that are new to the club, let me let you in on how big projects, or even little projects, get started.

It all starts when someone has an idea. Ideas are great things. The improvement or overhaul of one aspect of the club or another, or even whole new aspects that are being crafted from whole cloth. Once there's an idea, generally (if the idea-maker is smart) they go to the GM and ask about if it is doable, if it makes sense, if it is really as good of an idea as they are thinking. If it is, they start with a proposal.

Proposals used to be these long-winded things, and some of them still get that way, especially on major projects. Smaller things can sometimes be handled without the thick manual of explanation. At any rate, once the proposal is written, it gets gone-over with a fine tooth comb. This is the first iteration of the plan, and sometimes, the idea is huge and wide-spanning. Anyway, the GM and a couple of advisors will go over the proposal, make tweaks where necessary and 'focus-group' the idea to make sure that it is doing what the purpose is. It is usually at this point in the project's life that it is announced, or alluded to in reports or, in some cases, outright announced to the public.

Then, it goes to the point of getting the work done. Sometimes, this is as simple as editing a few lines in the wiki, sometimes it is a huge affair that will take months or years to get done. Any graphics, websites, and fictional writing that needs to be done to support te project gets done here... and this is also where the project can run into significant shrinkage. Sometimes, the people doing the work bite off more than they can chew, trying to put more into a project that is really needed. Sometimes, doing this huge amount of work is enough to burn people out, since they can't see the end of the project from where they sit. It's a hard thing, as a volunteer club, to expect so much out of people for so little in return. We have been blessed as a club with great talent in getting things done, but it is too easy to take them for granted. Very often here, projects will be scaled back, or even cancelled entirely, because of the amount of work needed.

And then there's the beta test, to make sure that everything works as expected and planned. Finally, there's the release to the brotherhood.

So, there's a lot of steps here, and for a lot of the old-timers, it seems like a typical day at the office. But there is a reason that i put this up here. Very often, leaders will get anxious, wanting to justify their office to the membership by showing them what they have been cooking. That's great. But all too often, the projects are shown off at the point that i talked about, before the work is even remotely close to being done, when the proposal is still at it's inflated state, where it's still more about what we hope to have done rather than something that we know we will accomplish.

I'll be honest with you guys: I don't want to let you down.

In the same vein, I know that my projects are very huge, and that there is boud to be some things trimmed off so that we can actually get things done, as opposed to wait for another ten years in the hopes that someday we may get it done. So I am far less likely to brag about what we are woking on, to let you guys know the exact extent and scope of what we are doing up here... because it's just a plan, it's exciting, and cool. Our minds start thinkng aboutt how cool it is, or even start rethinking the ideas put forth (and then people try to change the project, pushing the project further back away from completion yet)... when the actual release could be far less than what was originally laid out.

An example i just used today was with the robes.

Back when I first got put into the position of Herald, we had robes that were in serious need of an update. So I came up with a plan to replace them. The plan was for 12 or so robe sets, and so many specific variations on color and belt type and boot type that it was ridiculous. The project seemed glorious, thousands of ultra-customizeable robes instead of the no-choice stuff we had at the time.

Had I released that document to the public, people would have gotten really excited, and started making reccommendations for their favorite colors.

But the truth came when i started trying to export the stuff. Drawing so many alternates belts started not making sense, because no one could see the difference on the actual final render. And then, the program i was using to make the robes the way I was was locking up and only allowing me to do one at a time...which caused us to really take another look at what options were important for us to have. So, instead of my 3000 robe options at launch, we ended up with 72.

Now, those were pretty well received. But if I was bragging about 3000 robes the whole time, and gave you guys only 72, how would you feel? Ripped off? Right. Heck, I still put the time in, and got a lot more than what we had, but it still wasn't up to my own initial standards. It's a very similar story with how Rebirth was treated. A lot of rebirth actually did launch, but the thing that got people the most excited and was most hyped never happened, so people felt slighted by it, even though, in grander terms, it was a success as a project.

Now, I'd like to think that everyone here knows about me and can tell my work ethic, if only by my actions and what I have brought to the table over the last four years on the Dark Council. I'd like to say that everyone knows me well enough to know that I am not sitting on my hands here. And I would really like to show off some of the things that we are working on, but I can't give out a lot of details because I don't want you guys to feel like you're not getting what we promise. Kaek was right, but I think he was used to people who just lay everything out there for everyone to see.

Having said that, I will clue you guys in on a few projects that I am working on:

*Restructuring how the Brotherhood Tribunes are treated and handled - Since we removed the Order Leaders in Project Amalgamation under Jac, we replaced their citical work on Gaming and Fiction with tribunes that have had very limited success with what was needed and what the club really deserves. This is a problem that needs addressing, and we are working to resolve the issue. As such, until we sort out what we are going to be doing with this, I will not be taking applications for the Fiction Tribune.

*Character Sheet Revisions - Our character sheet is still very much an ACC character sheet instead of a true DB Character sheet like it should be. That much is obvious when you see that literally everything on the sheet somehow relates to combat, and there are no soft skills at all on there. We're already wrenching on this as well as revamping the basic RPG-setup to take advantage of it.

*Clan Artifacts - This is something that Sarin and I started a couple years back, but got dropped in favor of more pressing concerns. Essentially, we will have a list of Dark Side artifacts and Star Wars style objects that clans will be able to trade their weird out-of-universe D&D style stuff out for. I haven't made much progress on this during the RoS for obvious reasons, but it's not far off.

*Headshot Selector - This joint effort between Shikyo and I has been taking a long time,just because of the sheer amount of actual work needed to get this going off the ground. When you have something that needs to be as intensely personal as a face image, there needs to be a lot of customization. That means a lot of renders, and a lot of work. We're plodding along here, and we will eventually get it done.

*Possessions - This is my personal holy grail. I've talked about it in veiled references and occassionally answered questions about it on IRC. The general gist is that people will earn credits based on what they do in the club and can use them to buy official possessions for their character. From quite-customizable ships and buildings all the way down to blasters and hand tools to put in your belt, this is a program of huge scope. Orv has been working with me, as has Shikyo to get this moving for us.

*New Medals - We have essentially had the same medals as the EH had, years ago. Our organization has evolvd, and because it has, we have found the need for a few new medals to be released to fill in the gaps that the old ones left. Korras and I are working on this, based on project notes that Kaek worked very dilligently on. This is probably something that we will see sooner than anything else on the list.

*The Next Vendetta - Even while working on finishing up he last one, I was working on figuring out what we can learn from how we run vendettas; what works and what does not. There's a few new ideas that we will try out for the next Vendetta event in addition to what we learned about them from the last one. Rest assured that we will not be sending the DC home for the next one. Our tentative timescale is to have the next Vendetta in the fall. This is, of course, subject to change. And no, it will not be a Great Jedi War. It will be 2011 before there is another GJW.

*Societies - There has been a lot of clamoring for the return of the Grand Master's Royal Guard. The issue is that Sarin closed it for good reason. As it sat, the society was stagnation personified. There are a few ideas that we are working toward to bring it back in a different fashion that may make it an effective and more viable society in the Brotherhood. Whether or not we call it the GMRG or something else is another matter.

There are a lot of other things that are being worked on in various stages, but they are either being kept as pleasant surprises for the club upon release, or are just in the proposal stages and haven't been polished up yet. I don't think that I will break my own tradition and give out all of the details, but i will continue to try to give out broad updates about them, for the reasons listed above.

Paladin, one of the Fathers of the Modern Brotherhood, has held the position of Deputy Grand Master for several months now. His real life duties have caught up with him and have been pulling increasingly more and more of his time from us. As such, I am in need of a new Shadow Hand. This is not a simple or easy job. Anyone seriously considering the post will know how to look up the duties on the wikipedia, and knows how to apply for a position already. On top of that, I need someone capable of long-term activity, with a strong work ethic, good head on their shoulders, and the ability to work well with others. This is widely considered to be a training spot for Grand Master, so keep that in mind. I'm not going to kid you, there will be a lot of work involved....but you will be rewarded for it.

I would like to have all the applications in my email by the end of this week.

TL:DR
*RoS Over!
*Projects take time
*Korras is MAA, Kaek Retires
*Arion gets Dark Side Adept
*Troutrooper gets Dark Jedi Master
*Shikyo gets Dark Side Adept
*Apply for Deputy Grand Master

And that's all for this time. If you have any questions, or anything I can help with, pm me on IRC or shoot me an email. Have fun!

• A couple of days ago, I got an e-mail from a member asking if he could use the battles he had fought in the RoS as qualification battles instead of going through the regular process. It was a great idea, so I'm offering the opprtunity to everyone. If you are currently an ACC Initiate that participated in one of the ACC events in the RoS, you may get in touch with a member of the ACC Staff and provide them a link to one of your ACC battles. That battle will then be used in place of your qualification battle. Please note, this is not an automatic qualification for fighting in the RoS, but it might save you the trouble of having to fight another qual battle when you've already been active in the ACC. If you currently have a training or qualification battle open, send your battle links to the staff member you are fighting. If you don't have a battle open, send them to me.
• For everyone that has had a battle open since before the RoS or has started a battle since then, you'll notice that your weapon selections from the RoS (if you made any) are sitting at the top of the battle. Ignore them, as they were only intended to be used during the RoS. Please go by the weapons listed your the battle's intro post.
• As we did back in December, the ACC has once again gone through some staff changes. This is simply because the activity levels in the ACC have been low since the beginning of the school year, averaging two training battles a month across eight staff members. Because of this, several ACC Staff members are moving to a newly-formed Staff Reserve. All Staff Reservists are still considered members of the ACC Staff, but will be helping with staff duties on an as-needed basis rather than being "full-time".
• After lessons learned from judging battles in the RoS and some projects I had been working on before that event started, there has been another set of revisions to the ACC Handbook. Most of these revisions are under the CS Attributes section. Please read them carefully, as they will be affecting how battles are judged.
• Congrats to everyone for their hard work in the RoS, with a special mention to Revan for getting top place. Battles left over from the RoS are still being judged. Now that the standings are out, I'm giving Muz a hand clearing the backlog. I'm not entirely sure how soon they'll be finished, but I'm making it a top priority to do so, so hopefully it'll be cleared up in the next few days.
• Last but not least, congrats to Taig on spawning!

• With the number of Journeyman participants I've seen in both training battles and the Rite of Supremacy, I've decided to go ahead with a Journeyman Quick Skirmish Ladder. Exactly as the name says, this event will be organized into several rounds of single-elimination Quick Skirmish matches, with CFs and Crescents being awarded normally (pending approval from the MAA, of course). To give people time to get qualified that haven't already, the ladder will start on March 7, two weeks from today.
• In addition to the Journeyman competition, the ACC will be running its Fifth Championship League this spring, likely in April or May. Details for the format haven't been decided yet, but I'll be releasing more information as I have it.