Grand Master Report

2004/12/12, 4:11 PM, Grand Master - The Council

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_The Twelfth of December in the Year of the Fox,

Two-Thousand and Four  

**Report Four**_

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[- Where's the money, Lebowski!....err...Jac! -](#1)  

[- Situational Commentary -](#2)  

[- HRLD Kaine Rocks -](#3)  

[- A Fall from Glory -](#3half)  

[- Rebirth Website Update -](#4)  

[- Clan and Order Powers System -](#5)  

[- GJW Crap -](#6)  

[- Tournament Results Fixed -](#7)  

[- SB for Selket! -](#8)  

[- Big Props -](#Props)  




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"Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence." </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" bgcolor="#333333" align="center" style="border-left-width: 1; border-right-width: 1; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1; border-bottom-width: 1" bordercolor="#333333" colspan="2" height="20"> <>- Where's the money, Lebowski!....err...Jac! -</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" align="center" style="border-left-width: 1; border-right-width: 1; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1; border-bottom-width: 1" bordercolor="#333333" colspan="2" height="5"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" align="center" style="border-left-width: 1; border-right-width: 1; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1; border-bottom-width: 1" bordercolor="#333333" colspan="2" height="18">

I felt like I didn't add enough to my last report, so here comes a nice 
mid-weekender for ya.  



I've caught up on my lack of sleep from the last few days, managed to do 
really well on my Torts exam and then probably bomb my Contracts exam. 
Funny, since I like Contracts and hate Torts. Oh well. Criminal is next. I 
hate that class with a passion. We'll see how I do.  



Just as a side note, Closer isn't a good first date movie. The fiancée 
thought that it would be a cute Julia Roberts movie. It's more like a really 
soft porno. Some of you may enjoy it. haha  



Trying to get some stuff done today. No studying, prolly.  



::8 hours later:: Ok -- so I wrote this, then went to diner and crap like 
that. The good thing is that I did get a lot done today. Read on boys and 
girls.

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Stress is a bad thing. Especially in an online world where we don't get to 
see body language and facial expressions, stress can make a hard form of 
communication even harder. It can lead us to say things we don't mean to and 
take out RL crap on the people here.  



We're all getting stressed with RL this time of year. Exams, shopping, 
family, and that damn pain in your side every time you sit up. Everyone is 
affected somehow and at some time.  



What we need to be sure of is that we don't bring it back here. I know even 
I am guilty of it. I have a bad day and some little APP's email can throw me 
into a rampage. But in a time when everyone is busy, lets be sure to 
communicate clear, sleep on stressful items, and make good decisions.  



I think Trev and I were a good example of how to work things. Both of us got 
stressed about things, and bitched at each other. We resolved it quickly 
though. Both of us recognized that it was stupid to be pissed about a little 
nothing and RL stress. Hopefully we can avoid other situations in the DB the 
same way

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I have been going back and forth with Kaine for the last few days with a lot 
of emails. Now, I know that I have shortcomings as a leader sometimes, but I 
would like to address this here and now, cause this one is bothering me.  



I have a lot of people come up to me and tell me what I should do with the 
DC, and sometimes, when I look at it from an outsider's point of view, I can 
agree with them. But then when I talk to certain people like Kaine and 
Corran Force, I have to look at the situation a lot differently.  



Kaine and Cofo have been on the DC for years and have seen GMs come and go. 
When looking from the outside, it looks sometimes like they aren't active, 
or that they aren't taking the initiative that some more fresh DC members 
do. When you talk to them, you realize more that the position is more &quot;well, 
is this GM going to listen to me?&quot;. They have a different appearance 
because they have been around a lot longer and are out of the fresh 
let's-news-post everything stage.  



Now, as DGM I didn't take it as my responsibility to work with them. As GM 
at first, I had no time to. But I think you will all notice that since I have 
started to actually pay attention to and work with CoFo, the MAA office has 
ignited. CoFo and Khan have been doing a fantastic job, even with twice as 
many responsibilities. Now I have talked to Kaine and I realize that he is a perennial 
well of activity that is waiting to sprout. Kaine just needs a leader who 
will help him get his ideas through and get things going. Kaine has had his 
ideas ignored by some GMs, thrown out by Astatine, forgotten since the 
split. I for one am willing to give his ideas a chance to come to fruition.  



Kaine can and will be active and will bring the HRLD office to a new level. 
He and I have discussed a lot of great ideas that are going to be put in 
place soon. I am not going to replace him, and I will help him where and when I can to 
get things moving. I ask that you all give him the respect that he deserves, 
because he has earned mine.

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<>- A Fall from Glory -</td>

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I'm sure you've all seen that we had to remove Baron Gilkane from his 
position. That's never a fun thing to do at all, and it really sucks with 
Gilkane especially. I've been very very impressed with what he's done with 
the PA. he took it from dead to 33 members, and made significant changes to 
the structure. He was always good with reports, and the fact that everything 
went nuts so fast just blind sided me. Gilkane was probably a week away from 
a very nice reward, and then it all goes down the tubes.  



The reason I'm writing this is so you all know that it's not a bad thing to 
live up to mistakes, talk with your superiors and get things fixed. What 
Gilkane did initially was not what got him fired. There were overreactions 
that we could have recovered from, and Gilkane would have remained as Baron, 
and in good favor. However, Gilkane didn't respond to our emails, lied to us 
about some things that happened, and was very uncooperative. That is what 
lost him his job.  



We like to make sure that things go smoothly, and that the work gets done 
without problems, but I think some people forget that we are a team that 
works through problems. When a DC member hits a brick wall, I'm here to help 
bust through it, not fire them for hitting a dead end. Just keep that in 
mind when problems arise.

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<>- Rebirth Website Update -</td>

Quick update on the progress.  



CG and Jam3z have been working diligently on their own. They have been 
understanding that I have a lot to do elsewhere, too. I don't know what else 
I can say about them other than that they are the best members in the DB. 
Honestly.  



Jam3z is busy working on a new form class for the website that will help a 
ton in getting things up and running. He's made great progress and showed me 
some fun toys that will make the site much more dynamic.  



CG has been working hard on the Administrative backend. The latest things 
that he showed me were the skills and games lists. CG has built it so that 
we can add games and skills to the database on the fly, unlike now where we 
need to hard code it into like 80 files. I am impressed by what he has shown 
me. The stuff looks great.  



The site is making good progress. My goal is to have some new screen shots 
to you by the end of the month.

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<>- Clan and Order Powers System -</td>

Here we go. I gave the Consuls and ProConsuls a good deal of time to come up 
with things about the system, and no one did. The system is hereby adopted 
in its current raw form for the entire DB.  



The basics: Medals have never had much of a point besides dossier charms. 
People have always toyed with the idea of making medals carry powers with 
them. Well, we've done it.  



Bloodfyre, Pyralis and I have put together a system that will unlock powers 
for members when they have certain combinations of medals, and for order 
powers, position and time served. For example, a person who has earned any 
merit award from Dark Cross to GLS will have access to the first level clan 
power.  



Each clan has a set of powers. Those will not be released today due to some 
outstanding balance issues. You will be able to see the requirements today 
though.  



[Clan Powers 
System (.doc)](http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/gm/policies/ClanPowersSystem.doc)  

[Order Powers 
System (.doc)](http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/gm/policies/OrderPowersSystem.doc)  



These were the proposals sent to the DC and Summits. I will have further 
information soon about the specific clan powers. Order powers are still 
under development.  



If you have any concerns about the system, you can email gmstaff [at] [djb].com 
with them.

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<>- GJW Crap -</td>

Allllrighty. 3 of the four final tasks have been completed.  



I just spent the last 2 hours archiving the website and putting it in a 
state where it can just live forever. :) The story and event details are now 
located at:  



[
http://gjw.darkjedibrotherhood.com/FifthGJW/](http://gjw.darkjedibrotherhood.com/FifthGJW/)



The only thing left to do is to download ALL of the submissions from the 
database, zip and archive them and then delete the database. Then it will be 
out of our heads forever!!!!! Yaaaaay! Everyone thank Pyralis for doing that 
for me.

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<>- Tournament Results Fixed -</td>

BF just announced a bit ago that the Tournament Results page is up. He mentioned that you had to put in dates less than and greater than the single date you wanted for it to really work. Well, I fixed
that by adding a new single date field. You can now use the date range or just put in the single date that you want to see.  



[View the Page here](http://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/dbjedi/TournamentResults.asp)

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<>- SB for Selket! -</td>

I have been truly impressed by the performance of Selket in CSK. She has done a tremendous job as Consul. She is always on time with her weekly updates, is quick to do anything I ask of her, and drops by to see how I'm doing occasionally. She has been exceptionally good in her first months as Consul, and I am glad to have her around.

I hereby award Selket a Sapphire Blade. Congrats!

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<>- Big Props -</td>

- Big Props to CG and Jam3z for, well, being CG and Jam3z -   

- Big Props to Spears for making me pretty graphics -  

- Yaaay to Kir for being the quickest to get me an internal report -  

- Huge props to Cofo for sticking around for three years -  

-Yaaay! Vally got Prelate! -  

- Congrats to Kali! You got your lightsaber! -  

- Props to Jack Ordo on Priest! -  

- Congrats to Merlance on getting his lightsaber! -

Huge Props to Selket for doing a fantastic job! -

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![](gm/jac_chronicles_footer.jpg)</td>

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Aidan Kincaid, 12 Dec, 2004 12:58 AM

Wonderful report Jac :P

I had one question about the order powers though, involving the editing of JO/JA, etc levels and being a high rank. I don't think there's even a handful of people who can create maps for those games let alone senior ranked members. Just wondering if that's a little too high of a goal to set?

PS: It doesn't bother me because I do edit :P

Arania Lawakiro Palpatine, 12 Dec, 2004 1:26 AM

Jac forgot to mention that this has been rbought up already and is under review :o)

Arania Lawakiro Palpatine, 12 Dec, 2004 1:26 AM

Oh, and YAY Selket!

Acxodim Pyralis, 12 Dec, 2004 1:40 AM

maybe it's idealistic, but it was intended that such creation skills would be cultivated/developed with the creation of an order school that might focus on level creation or at least consider it as a side project. The successful implementation of such an order school might even produce a course on it?

I know I'd love to learn how. It'd be a nice change from XWA mission design.

Master Zsarion Bloodfyre, 12 Dec, 2004 8:31 AM

Yes, the whole idea of requiring editing missions, maps, etc., was put in, because as of yet, we don't have a whole lot of people who can do that. If we add an incentive towards that, people might be willing to learn. That was there for a good reason, and I know Pyralis and I hope people will agree, that sometimes, we need to try and incite people to do things that aren't the norm.

Syn Kaek, 12 Dec, 2004 1:07 PM

Though for the most part, I like all of this, I just wanted to comment that I don't think a medal and a few fictional powers is going to motivate someone to learn how to edit these games. It might have if we were talking about TIE Fighter or Dark Forces (I am still capable of editing TIE and used to be well versed in DF) but the games being produced nowadays require a high level of patience and effort to edit. Just my thoughts...damn I wish I had been brought in to help on this! It would've been so fun!

Traggisk Dith, 12 Dec, 2004 2:40 PM

YES THE NAME TITANOS IS NOW KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE BROTHERHOOD!!!!!!!

him and Pug go insane

A deleted dossier, 12 Dec, 2004 2:49 PM

Did I urinate on your rug, Jac? :P

Anyway, interesting stuff... good job Jacz0r and everyone else!

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