Message from the Fist

Aloha and Happy New Year! Welcome to my 26th Report as Fist of the Brotherhood.

Here’s the TL;DR.

1. Magistrate Positions Open!

2. The New GMRG

3. Titles and Trophies for the BGL

4. WoW Test Decision

Magistrate Positions Open!

As a reminder, I am looking for two new Magistrates to take over from Alaris and Justinios. Alaris has been on staff for over a year, and Justinios has served for seven months. Normally this is a six month rotation, but due to the BGL requirements for Alaris and the Rite of Supremacy taking a full month of Justinios’ Magistrate time, I wanted to ensure they both were able to finish out their terms the right way.

Alaris was awarded a Ruby Scepter for his outstanding work on the Brotherhood Gaming League (as well as his term as Hand of Justice and Proconsul of Clan Taldryan), and Justinios earned a Sapphire Blade (His first sacramental) for his efforts as Magistrate. This is telling not only of their individual efforts, but on the high expectations I have for members of this staff.

Magistrates primarily serve as the key processers of gaming submissions. They keep the queue clear and ensure all activities are processed within a 24 hour period. The also set up and run a minimum of one competition per month, a role that is now even more important with the change to the GMRG score calculation. They also help to keep the large number of Fist owned wiki pages updated, a task that I will lean heavily on for the next crop of magistrates.

Here’s what I’m looking for in a Magistrate:

• Positive attitude

• Easy to work with others\ be part of a team

• Willing to learn and teach\guide others

• No minimum rank requirement. All may apply!

• Basic understanding of the Rites of Combat

• Consistent Telegram presence and Email Turnaround of 24 hours

• At least one idea on how to make gaming better within the club

• No Gaming related CoJ convictions. I will make an exception for individuals who have had their LoRs removed.

All applications must be sent to myself and Junazee via email by 15 January 2019. You must email them to both of us. Failure to do so is an indicator that you are unable to follow directions, and I will simply not read your application.

There is no specific format for applications. The only rule is that you have to email it. Don’t apply via PM on telegram.

I look forward to seeing a bunch of apps!

The New GMRG!

The GMRG has finally received a long overdue facelift! I’ve highlighted this a few times, but I want to address some of the questions I have received.

Q: Who can participate in the competitions?

A: All members are eligible to compete in the competitions. Only GMRG Rank X and above will earn placement points towards their overall score. If a GMRG rank IX or below or Non-GMRG member places, that’s awesome; the points will not count towards anything until you hit Rank X.

Q: Will placement in Clan or House level competitions count towards the score?

A: No. Only official Fist-led competitions will count. It is not fair to allow competitions that are not open club wide to factor into a club-wide scoring system. I should note that not all Fist-run events will be included. Gaming tests, the planned GMRG Invitational, and Quarterly Gorefest events will not factor into your score.

Q: Will placement in competitions factor into ranking up in the GMRG?

A: No. Rank up is still based off total CFs, CEs, and Pendants of Blood.

I will update the wiki page later today with the new score calculation. Everything is live, and the first set of competitions are up on the site. Good luck to all!

World of Warcraft Decision

The WoW interest poll closed on 1 January. Based off the results of this poll, I have decided to not move forward with a test for the game.

The initial poll for WoW that occurred prior to the Rite of Supremacy had 47 responses, with an almost 50/50 split of yes to no on supporting WoW. After seeing some of the dropoff in interest, I decided to run a second poll. In the second poll, 52 people responded, with only 15 people stating they had an interest. Of that 15, only 8 stated that they still actively played the game.

Adding a new game, especially an MMORPG like WoW is not a small task. I have held fast to a minimum of 20 people showing interest before I am willing to run a test, with a minimum of 20 participants in a test competition. As I did not have 20 yes votes for the second poll, I have decided to not move on to the testing phase.

Should I see a rise in interest in the future, I will consider running a poll again. But for now, WoW is off the table.

Brotherhood Gaming League Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the Brotherhood Gaming League tournaments! The following members will earn a special title and a trophy that is currently being designed by the Herald. This title and trophy will honor Frosty Romanae Tarentae, and is something that these members will be able to display on their dossiers for the duration of their time in the DJB.

Heroes of the Storm Winner: Justinios Taldrya Drake

Hearthstone Winner: Justinios Taldrya Drake

Overwatch Winner: Rulvak Qurroc

Jedi Academy Winner: Aurora “Aura” Ta’Var

Thanks to all for participating, and congratulations once again to the winners.

DB Gaming Telegram Chat

I have updated the DB Gaming Telegram Chat Rules on the site. I have decided to relax the moderation outside of major events. The gif, sticker, and image ban remains in effect.

• Topics in DB Gaming Chat need to be gaming focused. You are welcome to discuss non-supported games, sales, hardware upgrades, thoughts on upcoming games, game lore, etc. Members may post links to gaming competitions they are running. All other tangiental discussions should occur in DB General Chat.
• This chat is text based only. This includes links. Upon joining DB Gaming, an admin will manually change your posting permissions to text posts only. You are not restricted from posting links, provided they are related to gaming. Posting a link to a sale, competition you are running, official announcement on a new game, and things like that are absolutely OK. Posting a clickbait article or one filled with spoilers is not allowed. Don’t spam links. See if someone else has posted it within the last few hours.
• During large scale events like GJWs and Vendettas, DB Gaming will be restricted to matchmaking posts only. This helps keep the room clear for members to find people to play games with/against.
• While members are encouraged to post links to their streams, repeated solicitation of viewers is not allowed.'''
• No “console war” posts'''. PS4 is not better than XBox, or vice versa. Consoles are not better than PCs. Those are opinions. Play on the system you like.
• Keep the language clean. Vulgar language will not be tolerated. Members who violate this rule will have their post deleted and receive a warning. Continued violations will result in the Member losing all posting privileges (a hard mute) for a week. Any further violations will be forwarded to the Justicar.

Admin and Policy Reminders

All current Gaming and Fist Policies can be found on the Gaming Information page. I suggest that all members read this page as it has some great info. I will make sure this page stays updated to reflect all current office policies. I do not want to confuse anyone, especially with what is and is not allowed in the DB Gaming Telegram room.

Other items of note:

• 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. My staff and 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-counting 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]

Happy New Year to all. I hope that you all enjoy everything we have planned in 2019. Get those Magistrate applications in by the 15th!!

-Dracpool, out.