MAA Report, July 09

News

The MAA Administered AWOL checks ended not too long ago and reduced our numbers to a more ‘realistic’ level. Since the completion of the checks, a few people have transferred back into Clans or migrated elsewhere. I don’t take any of this into account in keeping my member count updated since the checks are only aimed at ensuring a periodic accurate count – kind of like a census. Since no Clans are in danger of being downgraded to a House right now, this isn’t that big of a deal.

I recently released a new definitive Titles and Honorifics policy to the Brotherhood. It will hopefully be posted to the wiki soon (UPDATE: here it is). We decided to draft and release this policy since we had received a number of questions regarding House titles. I decided we should create a definitive document that encompassed all of the current established and unwritten rules regarding titles and honorifics. The result is what you see. Most of the statements in the document are just codifications of procedures that we have been following for a long time. I just thought it would be a good idea to write it down somewhere.

The Journeyman Promotion Requirements have been updated to version 1.2. I clarified the use of Shadow Academy courses and I decreased the length of some of the fiction requirements. Check the change log for more specific details. Of all the things in the requirements, I received the most complaints about the length of the fiction projects. I worked with various leaders throughout the Brotherhood to reevaluate the tasks themselves and then determined that it would be better to lower the requirements. Hopefully, these are more manageable for most members. If you are a leader, please review the changes! The current requirements can be found on the wiki at this link.

I got a sweet new (my first, actually) warbanner which you can see here:

My thanks to Shikyo for making this for me.

And lastly, yes, I screwed up the database again. The Tribune issue will be fixed as soon as possible :P

Policy Updates and Clarifications

Nothing this month besides the Titles and Honorifics policy that I already discussed.

Projects

Medal Revision Project: In progress – I am about 40% finished with this

MAA AWOL Checks: Complete

Promotion Requirements for Journeymen: Released – updated to version 1.2

Brotherhood Administrative Code (renamed): In progress – this project has morphed from administrative cleanup to something much more ambitious. I wrote out the Title and Honorifics policy quickly in a day or two. It inspired me to go back and collect all the policy and procedure statements that have been promulgated since I first became MAA and put them down in one centralized document. That document, the Brotherhood Administrative Code, would then be made public (and beautifully HTMLized by Arion) so that members can more easily access all the information they need. It makes life easier for everyone!

Work on the Code is going very well. I have been working on it for a week or two and have already collected all policy statements regarding MAA duties going back to my first tenure as MAA. I combed through the Codex, the Covenant, the Wiki, all my news posts and reports, all of Krav and Halc’s news posts and reports, and all of the policy documents and statements relating to MAA duties that were posted on the website. I have divided them into categories and placed them in one massive 35 page document that I am now editing and reorganizing. The final document will not be 35 pages so rest easy. My aim is to make everything as clear and concise as possible. I hope to be finished with this before the end of summer and maybe even before the end of July. I hope it will be a valuable resource for the membership.

Staff

<3 Anshar

Ask Kaek

No one ever sends me questions :-(

Closing Remarks

I’m sure Vardar will (UPDATE: he did) bring this to everyone’s attention sooner rather than later but I think it’s really important. LucasArts has decided to re-release a large number of its older games on Steam. Currently they have only released a few but they intend to release more if the sales for the current batch are good. For those of you not familiar with Steam, it is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Software that allows games and patches to be directly downloaded to your computer and played without a CD. You can find out more at the Steam site.

What’s really great about this re-release is that these games have been redesigned to work on most modern machines. This includes some classic LucasArts adventure games like the Fate of Atlantis, Loom, and The Dig (individually available at 5 bucks a piece). They utilize recompiled executables that are designed to run in a Windows environment. I was able to get all the old adventure games and Republic Commando to run in Windows 7 with no problems, no tweaking, no cracks; nothing. You don’t even need to use ScummVM (a wonderful program) to run the adventure games.

I highly recommend that you check out the press release and the developer’s page.

Additionally, LucasArts will be releasing a special edition of the original Monkey Island game within the next week which features both the original graphics and enhanced graphics with voice acting. What’s even better is that this enhanced edition is priced at only 10 dollars! Adventure game fans rejoice!

I’m very hopeful that LucasArts will see fit to release more of their classic games in the future. All of these games are well priced, easy to obtain, run very well without a bunch of tweaking and are great for the DB. Republic Commando is already available for only 10 dollars. Now…can I get original TIE Fighter please? :P

Dark Jedi Master Syn Kaek

Master At Arms

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DJM Syn Kaek (Sith)/MAA/Dark Council [ACC: OPR]

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