Table of Contents

• Seasons And You
• Parting Words
• Important Links

Seasons And You

Seasons, the much teased new approach to the Club-wide overarching experience, is around the corner and while all the coding for the "battlepasses" isn't complete that doesn't mean you—the member—can't experience everything it has to offer! That just means manual work on our end for a bit. How terrible...that means...spreadsheets!

But that's beside the point. So, you may be asking what is this whole seasons thing? Curiosity is good. Now, we're still tightening the bolts and welding the seams but I can at least give you this tease! Seasons is going to be a year-long approach to the club's fiction with tie-in events that will host a series of seasonal competitions. These competitions will run in the background much like our member events do now without getting in the way of clan events. We will be providing plenty of time for members to engage and this engagement will have a direct impact on how things go. From there, continued participation leads to rewards that are unique to the season. This will all be explained later. Eventually, we'll get into a feedback loop with the clans themselves, allowing for what the clans are doing and how they are utilizing our various factions to flow upward into the overarching plot. That makes what the clans are doing more prevalent to the overall flow of events.

What does this mean for members at an individual level? A few things. You get to have an impact on the entire club experience. You get immediate rewards throughout the year related to the season. You get to have fun. Most of all, you're not stressed out.

So, let's take a look at some of the specifics of seasons.

The Cycles

What are cycles? To translate the structure of a Vendetta, you normally have two phases and an event long bucket nested in a major event that has high pressure to compete. A cycle is as follows:

You start the flow with a major fiction drop. From there, you go into two months of background competitions for that cycle. These competitions will come in a variety of forms. You might have a higher impact competition that runs the full two months. Other competitions will be phased between the two months. This mirrors the vendetta approach in that sense of having two phases and an "event" or "cycle" long bucket. Again, however, the focus is letting these allow for varying levels of engagement and you don't need to hardcore devote yourself to them. They're there for those who want to participate, accumulate their "pledge" (see plot progression below) to influence the events, or grind the rewards (see rewards system below). While these events will be advertised, we will not be hounding you daily to participate. The target here is "fun" and collaboration.

Plot Progression

Now then, what's up with the plot progression? Think of a season as a major overarching plot that the club is going to experience over the course of a calendar year. There will be multiple updates between the above cycles and these can culminate in a major event or vendetta as a capstone. How does the plot progress? Well, that's up to the membership. At the beginning of a cycle, each member will have the chance to pledge to an outcome where their activity will give points towards that outcome.

From here, the participants are choosing their own adventure as a collective and pushing our Plotty McPlotty-pants in your desired direction. We will also maintain an open dialogue with clans as they will be hosting their own events throughout the year. The Council will then adapt to what clans are doing and incorporate that into the ongoing events with those clan-level experiences being reflected in the club level. This could potentially lead to cross-over villains going from just your backyard to affecting the entire club.

Rewards System

We're not just here for the plot, though! There's also—ahem—not what Kamjin wants me to say. No, what I'm here to talk about is cold hard credits (and items). While there's a lot of room on our side to plot this out, it's basically going to culminate in a larger scale version of the battlepass system you might've seen Turel talking about in the Fist reports. His vision on that was great and perfectly slotted into my own view of seasons.

Basically, participating in competitions throughout the season will get you points towards that season's trophy. Each tier will have an associated reward. That reward may just be additional credits, but it could also have an honorific you can't get otherwise. Also, some Regent-like fellow whispered of potential unique crafting items and story-themed special items.

NOW! Don't fall into the trap of Fear-Of-Missing-Out. While things like the credits and honorifics can't be claimed after the fact, we want to make sure that the items remain accessible. Participation in seasons will grant you the item rewards, but they will not be locked away forever. After a honeymoon period, past seasonal items will be made available in the Vault storefront. For a cost, of course. We do need to work our way out of the deep negatives in our credit account here!

Additionally, we will also be looking at rewarding clans that participate in the seasons. This is not to be confused with the GJW "first clan" rewards and massive credit dumps, but you will see clan-level rewards handed out.

Parting Words

I sincerely hope that this teaser has you at least somewhat excited for what we have planned. This is a lot of work on our side, and a risk, but I personally believe it to be worth it. As long as we manage to maintain open communication and a desire to produce, we should be able to keep this up for everyone's enjoyment. But it takes a village. Luckily, this village is pretty great. I'm looking forward to what we can make together. Until next time!

Important Links

• Dark Brotherhood Chat Policies
• Policies Category

Thank you for reading and remember: any questions relating to Brotherhood policies or if you just want to chat about any concerns, feel free to reach out by email ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]) or hit me up on Discord.