Message from the Fist

Happy New Year, everyone!

I have a few things to cover, so please take time to read this. The staff has done some great work over the past month preparing for the 2018 gaming events, and I think we have some great stuff in store for you. One of the things we tried last year was annual containers for Gaming, Mobile, and Flash games. These wound up becoming cumbersome and didn’t spark much in the way of competition and overall gaming prowess. So, we have something new, and I’ll discuss that a bit further along in this report.

Outside of that, normal housekeeping actions, some minor updates to the wiki, and a list of competitions for you to to sink your teeth into.

I hope you all enjoy everything we have planned in 2018!

2017, By the Numbers

2017 was a great year for gaming in the DJB. We added the first fully supported mobile game, removed the old T1 and T2 gaming restriction, provided launch day support for Destiny 2 and Battlefront 2, and ran nearly 200 separate gaming competitions, including two tournament brackets and the Great Jedi War.

The overall increase in gaming is pretty impressive. All told, the club at large submitted I’ve broken down the most popular games played in 2017 and showed the difference in number of submissions from 2016. Note: Not all games are on these charts. I omitted any PvE/PvO activity with less than 25 submissions in a year, and any PvP activity with less than five submissions in a year.

Additionally, I thought you would all be interested to see exactly how much work the staff does in reviewing/approving your submissions. Activity approval is more that simply clicking a button. The staff goes through each and every submission ensuring there are no mistakes, that all members in a submission qualify for the rewards they are submitting for, they are eligible for the competition they are submitting for, etc.

New in 2018: The Brotherhood Gaming League

After the HotS and Pod Racing brackets, I had a few members come to me and talk about how much they enjoyed those events, how we should do more, make gaming competitive again, etc. So I ran two more brackets in the GJW, again to huge success.

Not long after the GJW ended, Alaris sent me a PM asking if he could submit a proposal for a Club-internal gaming league, run by the Fist office, and open to all members of the club. I reviewed his concept, and immediately decided to bring Alaris on staff to help organize and manage this new competition format.

As we move forward into 2018, we are further growing our Gaming Community. Interest in gaming has been at a high level thanks to the creation of the Fist and the promotion and variety of video games available to our membership. We have all time classics like Jedi Academy that continues to be a major source of gaming, as well as newer games like Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm that capture the interest and imagination of our membership.

In the spirit of growing and fostering this great community, and after the great success of the Great Jedi War, we are organizing a series of tournaments that will highlight the variety of gaming skill our members have to offer.

To gauge interest in such a thing, we will be starting with one of our long lasting mainstays of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood: Jedi Academy.

Sign-ups will be held between January 1st and January 10th. All of those who sign up will be organized into randomized groups, with no preference based on Clan. You will compete against members of your group, after which the members who place 1st or 2nd in each group will advance to the knock-out stage, organized in a similar manner to the UEFA Champions League.

If there is enough interest in continuing this, points will be awarded based on total wins in the Group Stage and final position in the Knock-Out Stage. After further tournaments are held, the highest point getters will advance to a 4-Round Champions Tournament.

If you wish to compete in the Inaugural BGL: JA Season you can sign up for it here.

Gaming Competitions:

• [FIST] Monthly Gaming-January - Big change from how we ran gaming events last year. Each month, there will be a single container competition, with a handful of different competitions inside it. There will be mobile games, flash games, regular games, unsupported games, the list goes on. So click on the link and check out the events we have in store. Placing will earn points, participating will earn points. If you participate in every event, you earn a few bonus points!

• Diablo 3: Season 12 - We’re a little late into Season 12, but with the GJW, the holidays, and me really not thinking about it much, I want to make sure we have an opportunity for our D3 fans to grind rifts and look for Ancient Primal loot. There are three events, Fastest Solo Rift, Highest Solo GR, and highest Duo GR.

• Brotherhood Gaming League: Season 1 - I am extremely excited about this. This is where the real competition is. Get out there and earn some personal glory!

• Gaming Test: Hearthstone - This one is pretty important. In case you live under a rock, you know that our beloved Pazaak website has ceased to function. All attempts at contacting the webmaster have failed. I will keep trying, but in the meantime, I owe it to our gamers and this club to provide a free, easy to learn game that is relatively fun. Hearthstone (yes, another Blizzard game) looks like a great option to replace pazaak. It’s free, cross platform (between PC and Mobile), and has a pretty low learning curve. The competition runs through the 6th of January, and requires 20 participants for me to consider it for full support. Help make this a reality!

Admin and Policy Reminders

• Gifs, stickers, images, charity solicitations, and being a jerk are all banned from DB Gaming. The Gif, Sticker, and image ban is non-negotiable. I stated in this news post what the rules of engagement were. I have now made it relatively simple: Only admins can post images. If you have something you think should be posted, ask me or a member of my staff.

• The staff has 24 hours from the time you submit gaming activity to approve it. If your submission has been sitting for longer than that, there is a problem. If it hasn’t, there is no problem. The staff do their best to process gaming submissions as quickly as possible, but they are real people with real lives. I do not expect them to sit behind a computer processing gaming submissions all day, and neither should any of you.

• Solo submissions are never acceptable for Clusters of Earth/Fire. I will reject any that come in. You must play with at least one other DB member, no exceptions. This is not changing any time in the near (or far) future.

• Pendants of Blood are not acceptable for submission to cluster race competitions. If we see them, we will remand the request.

• Reminder: Feel free to run Gaming competitions DB wide. Gaming is a slightly different community, and is one of the few that consistently brings club members together outside of the competitive environment. Most of the people I currently game are all in different clans. By opening up your event DB-wide, you increase the pool of possible participants, which could allow for a crescent upgrade!

• Reminder: While I sincerely appreciate having proposals/great ideas sent to me via telegram, please email the staff list (email is at the bottom of this report). I ask that your House and Clan leadership take a look at your proposals before you send them up. This isn’t to add a layer of bureaucracy, it’s because I’m sure they’d like to know how you are trying to help the club improve...helps with award and promotion recommendations and all that. Feel free to cc them on your email to me and my staff.

Helpful Links

• [DB Gaming on Telegram - Log in to view join link] on Telegram. Come be part of the discussion in the one and only official gaming channel of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood!

• Send us an email at [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

TL;DR

1. New gaming league play competition in the club.
   
2. Alaris joined the staff!
3. Plenty of competitions
4. Gaming numbers

I wish you all a happy new year and as always, if you have a question, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. I, along with my staff are always happy to answer questions and provide help in any way we can.

Until next month!

-Dracpool, out.