Message from the Fist

Hello everyone, and welcome to my 6th report as Fist of the Brotherhood. It’s hard to believe I’ve been in the seat a little over five months already. Time truly does fly.

This will be a relatively short report. It’s time for a Magistrate change, so applications are now open! I’ll also cover some updates to the Fist Bot, Force Arena guild management, and where we sit on tests for potential supported platforms.

No fiction, nerf hammer, or .gifs this month.

Magistrate Jobs Opening!

As I stated in my very first report, the M:FIST positions are six-month terms. I want to give our gaming community a chance to work in the office to see what we do, and to help bring in fresh ideas.

I will be opening two magistrate positions for applications. Beef and Irfy have been two absolutely incredible members of my team, and I couldn’t have transitioned into my role as the Fist without their help and support.

All are welcome to apply, including the outgoing magistrates.

Here’s what I’m going to expect from my magistrates

• Basic knowledge of our gaming system and platforms.
  
• Moderately active gamer. You don’t need to be the best one out there to be on staff!
• A 24-hour turn around time for email. You will be expected to keep the submission queue cleared out so our members don’t miss out on their clusters!
• A basic knowledge of or a willingness to learn how to update wiki pages. We maintain a LOT of wiki articles. Updating them is critical.
• Fresh ideas. Bring something to the table.
• A positive attitude.
  
• A selfless approach. You are going to be part of a team that provides activity for the entire club.
• A complete and total understanding that you are NOT eligible for placement in the GMRG quarterly rankings for the duration of your tenure on the staff.

Send all applications to myself and Edgar Drachen NLT 21 March.

Updates to the Fist Bot

James has done some remarkable work on updating the Fist bot. I can’t stress enough how much that man does for this club, and how lost I’d be without him keeping the site and PvP reporting methods working.

Why Doesn’t the Bot Work for Me?

Up front, I want to remind everyone that the Fist bot only works with official Telegram clients. That includes the Telegram provided web application, downloadable app, and the official mobile client apps. The bot will not work with third party clients.

Why Can’t I Re-queue If I Haven’t Played 12 Matches?

The bot was originally created to prevent match dodging and other abuse on IRC, especially during Feuds and GJWs. During those events, it often happens that a very skilled member gets paired with a less skilled one.

Rather than driving their score entirely into the ground by taking 12 losses, the lesser skilled member in that case often opts to play a minimal number of matches (as dictated in the Vendetta specific rules outlined in the ROC). After reporting these (let’s say three) matches, we don’t want to match these two opponents again unless they both queue for a different platform, even if they didn’t complete the full set of 12 matches.

Because it is often the case that a Feud doesn’t include the full population of the Brotherhood, it did not seem logical to toggle the bot between a vendetta mode that wouldn’t re-match people once they played the minimum number of matches and a normal mode that would re-match people.

But I Want to Have the Option to be Re-Matched!

Awesome, and we have a plan for that.

The Fist staff is doing a closed test of a new feature for the bot that allows people to re-match if, and ONLY if both parties agree. Once this feature is validated and all the bugs are worked out, we will roll it out for implementation.

Let me be clear: Both parties will have to agree to be re-matched, so no throwing shade if the person you are waffle-stomping in JA decides up front he doesn’t want to be re-matched with you after playing the minimum number of matches!

Gaming Related Updates

Star Wars: Force Arena

Star Wars: Force Arena currently has a 50 person cap for guilds. As such, there are limited spots in our two official guilds, DJB and DJB2. Moving forward, I am going to begin removing people from the guilds for inactivity. You are welcome to reapply for one of the two guilds, but I want to make room for those who are actively playing the game.

Standards for removal: After two weeks of inactivity, the guild leader will notify a member that they will be removed if no matches are played. After 3 weeks of inactivity, a member will be removed from the guild.

This change allows me the potential opportunity to support 1v1 matches.

Additionally, all Force Arena players MUST have their user name on their dossier. This is no different than any other game we support.

I will codify this standard in the wiki for posterity.

FIST Sponsored Gaming Competitions

[FIST]1st Annual Flash Gaming

[FIST] 2nd Annual Mobile Gaming

[FIST] GMRG Gorefest 2017

[FIST] Quarterly Gaming Challenge Q1 2017

[FIST] Galaxy of Heroes Quarterly Squad Arena

[FIST] - Heroes of the Storm Test Run This one is looking good. Keep those submissions coming. Ends on 5 March!

February Weekly and Saturday Pendant of Blood Awardees

Congratulations to the following individuals on earning Pendants of Blood for the highest overall PvP score for the weeks/Saturdays listed!

Weekly PoBs

• Jan 29 to Feb 3: Blade

• Feb 5 to 19: Tirano

• Feb 12 to 17: Blade

• Feb 19 to 24: Blade

Saturday PoBs

• Feb 4th: Kelly Mendes

• Feb 18th: Blade

• Note: Feb 11 and 25th no matches were played

Ask the Fist

Got a question? Did I fail to answer you on Telegram? Use the Ask the Fist Google Form. Post a question here anytime, day or night, and either I or a member of my staff will try to answer it for you.

TL;DR

1) Two Magistrate Jobs open with 1 April start dates! Apply now!

2) Force Arena Guild management. Play or get the boot.

3) Bot Update coming! Don’t use third party clients for Telegram!

4) Plenty of competitions. HotS test finishes 5 March. For Honor is next.

Keep on gaming. Heroes of the Storm Test results will be out mid-month. For Honor test will start after that is complete.

-Drac