Introduction

The May 4th event is in full swing. Be sure you are practicing good sportsmanship and generally being excellent to one another.

Not to steal any thunder but there is a double-cluster competition running to celebrate Star Wars games.

Without further ado….

New #TeamFist

I know this is a little late but please welcome Malfrost and Sofila “Jenni” to #teamFist as new Magistrates.

Future Plans

So with a fully-fleshed out #teamFist we can make some headway on short and long-term staff goals:

1. GMRG “Battle Pass” - This is the big one. I’ve long said my goal is to replace the current GMRG leaderboard with a more accessible system that anyone potentially get rewards from, not just the top ten. This ties into the larger “seasons” concept the council has been moving toward. For the GMRG it would be a quarterly track of rewards you would unlock similarly to how you rank up in the society. It provides some flexibility to emphasize certain platforms or activities for extra seasonal points.

2. GMRG Lore Update - This ties into the GMRG society revamp we completed in November. But with the new gear and new mission for the GMRG we need some new NPCs, locations, possessions for the society. While this is “krathy” it helps the society be more flavorful for those who chose to rank up and engage with it in-character. Look for GMRG lore competitions next month with some special rewards.

3. Gaming Live Events - As staff we want to start hosting gaming nights and other live events on Discord on a semi-consistent schedule. It’s all about bringing people together!

4. Gaming Submission Process Update - This is a long term joint project with the Emissary office but I would like to look at ways to streamline the gaming submission process so it’s more user-friendly.

As always we will be keeping an eye out for new gaming platforms to add. If you want a game supported make sure to get others to play it with you and submit those screenshots to casual queue!

Competitions

Competitions are great! I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of gaming competitions being and run and that’s outstanding! Remember that competitions are the bread and butter for getting that sweet sweet XP and credits. Don’t be afraid to run gaming comps be they cluster races or skill-based or something else. If you have an idea for a gaming competition that you’d like to try and aren’t sure how don’t hesitate to reach out to the Fist staff for help. We will work with you to try to make your idea possible.

The Fist Competition Approval Guideline has been updated but I wanted to put some information in this report to help members who are creating gaming competitions.

So the first thing that confuses people is competition archetype vs competition type. Archetype is the first selection you make when creating a competition. The confusing part is the “gaming” archetype is really only for cluster races. Most competitions of “submit your highest score of” are regular (or timed if you need that for some reason).

When creating a cluster race make sure that you select a scoring type down in the gaming competition settings box. There’s also a feature not many know about that got added during the last GJW to set a per-platform cap in cluster races. Normally cluster races give points within the competition for each cluster submitted to the comp, even if those go over the daily/weekly cluster caps. A competition organizer can now set a per-platform cap on how many clusters the competition will count for points. This is good when you want to encourage members to play a variety of games instead of just maxing out one or two.

Finally, for my last tidbit I want to encourage people to run different kinds of cluster races. Just know that if you say, run a cluster race for a certain kind of game, it is the competition runner’s responsibility to vet the gaming submissions to make sure they meet the competition’s criteria. The comp runner does this by going to the “gaming submissions” tab of managing the competition. The Fist staff only validates that gaming submissions are good for clusters, we do not validate that submissions meet particular competition rules.

Closing

Keep those gaming competitions coming! I love to see all those credits and xp (and the chance to get some myself). If you have any questions about a gaming comp idea you have don’t hesitate to reach out to the Fist staff.

Until next time,

Rajhin Cindertail aka Turel

Fist of the Brotherhood