Time for another gaming update! This time we're featuring Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Uprising, Star Wars The Old Republic, Star Wars Commander, and Star Wars Galactic Defense. Some additional information on the Cluster of Earth project and an update to awards for Destiny's DLC that came out last month.

Star Wars Battlefront

Let's start this report off with the most anticipated Star Wars game we have coming. I know there are the folks out there who think this game will never be able to outclass Battlefront 2. I'm not one of them, nor do I ever want to be. Living in past glories is a dull existence, this game will be awesome and I couldn't be more excited to see it launch. Making sure the DJB has systems in place to support everyone who is interested in playing it is one of the things I'm looking forward to most over the next 5 months.

We've seen bits of information on this game, and last week EA Star Wars gave us a FAQ to summarize it all. You can check the link for the full read, but here is a summary of the highlights:

• Releases on 17Nov2015
• Available on PS4, Xbox One, and Origin on PC. Not available on PS3 or Xbox360 due to inability to handle the graphics. Haven't seen official PC system recommendations/requirements yet other than the ability to connect to Origin.
• 12 maps set on Hoth, Endor, Tatooine, and Sullust. Two more maps coming in a free DLC for the Battle of Jakku on 01Dec2015.
• Air Battles on the planets previously listed will be in play. No space battles right now.
• Current vehicles available to pilot: AT-AT, Tie Fighters, X-Wing, Snowspeeders, speederbikes, and the Millennium Falcon.
• Iconic Heros available: Vader and Boba Fett announced so far. Guessing more will be announced during E3.
• Can play with 8-40 people online.
• Focus on online play. However, Missions designed based on the original trilogy will be able to be played solo, in offline split screen (probably just for consoles), or with a friend online and co-op on console.
  
• Deluxe Edition is available for ~$10 more, has a cool looking Storm Trooper Helmet closeup on the packaging and includes:
  • Instant access to the DL-44
  • Instant access to an Ion Grenade (extra damage to vehicles)
  • Instant access to the MPL Ion Torpedo (extra damage to vehicles)
  • Exclusive emote "Ion Shock"
  • Exclusive emote "Victory" (aka - Fist Pump)

While this applies to most games we're looking forward to, E3 is coming in just 2 days. The EA Star Wars team has promised new gameplay and announcements during the event! For all of us who aren't able to attend the Expo, I recommend subscribing to the EAStarWars YouTube channel to view the presentations from the comfort of your home.

Can't wait 2 days? Need something to remind you how awesome this game will be on a daily basis? Grab a Wallpaper from their website. I've also found that the right and left sides of these fit nicely on a smartphone as a Wallpaper or lock screen.

Star Wars Uprising

As mentioned in the Recruitment Tribune's News Post this is the newest Star Wars mobile game in development. Based on their website and wiki we should be expecting to see Beta launch sometime this summer. Since Diablo 3 came out I've been saying a Star Wars version of that game would be awesome (and easier to justify supporting in this club) early reports say that's exactly what this game is.

Their website is currently offering Pre-Registration. In return for registering early you get two in gam items: a Stormtrooper Helmet and the "Founder" Title. Registering also gives you the ability to cast votes for future in game perks for Pre-Registrants. Here's the list of the vote topics:

• June: Mikkian or Mirialan Race
• July: E-11 Blaster Rifle or DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol
• August: Astromech Droid or Wookie (companion?)

I can only guess that based on this vote timeline they're hoping to launch in September or October. Probably see Beta coming in late July or August sometime. Once we know more on the game we'll see what we can add as far as CE / CF support and Competitions to run for it.

Star Wars: The Old Republic, Expansion?

The SWTOR Twitter account is teasing a big annoucenement coming tomorrow at the E3 EA Press Conference. From the images it looks like the next expansion will be called Fallen Empire, or something along those lines.

There's also an imgur image with potential details and a release date that's been found. Not sure how valid it all is, but it looks pretty sweet.

E3!

Since every topic above is potentially getting some coverage and details added to it at the E3 Expo, I though this would be a good place to add a link to its schedule.

You'll notice Star Wars Battlefront is slotted from 1840-1900 on Tuesday June 16th, Pacific Time. Mark your calendars.

Star Wars Commander

Event and Competition

Earlier this week Star Wars Commander started up the Heroic Defense II Event. A competition has been created for this event using the standard format.

Star Wars Commander PC version

As I mentioned in a recent News Post, the Star Wars Commander PC version is also being watched for Events now too. I don't have access to it because my computer doesn't run Windows 8.1, but my Staff is keeping an eye on it and will be letting me know when an Event comes up so we can create an associated competition for it.

Mobile Squad Cleanup

Earlier this week I was looking through the Star Wars Commander DJB Squad that I organized when the game first came out. Only about one third of the members have any recent activity (one month or less). Since this is capped at 30 members, I'm going to be doing two things to facilitate active players being able to support each other.

• First, if you haven't logged in to Star Wars Commander in the last month and are in the "Dark-Brotherhood" Squad I will be removing you tomorrow.
• Second, I'm going to set the required Medals to join the Squad at 500. This will not affect people who are already members of the Squad and have less than 500 medals (like me). This is the lowest setting I can use based on how the game was designed. I'm doing this to prevent join request spam by random people. My hope is that this will help us consolidate the active Star Wars Commander players into one Squad, and they will be able to support each other by donating and receiving troops.

Star Wars Galactic Defense

A few days ago Star Wars Galactic Defense began the Hunt for the Fallen event. This event is not the arena based one we've seen the last few times. The Event Champion (Dark Side) is Barris Offee, who has a special which damages and slows all enemies around her. The special Durasteel Recruitment Pod Champion (Light Side) is Luminara Unduli, her special move creates an aura which slows the attack speed of all enemies around her for 10 seconds.

The way you can get a chance to purchase the special champion in recruitment pods has also changed. This is a brief listing of how it works now:

• Carbonite Pod: 10k credits, champions can reach level 40 and skill tier 3
• Durasteel Pod: 30k credits, champions can reach level 60 and skill tier 4
• Event Pod: 60 Gems (seems to be discounted to 48 gems on most weekends), champions can reach Level 60 and skill tier 4. Increased chance to get the current event champion, but may get a Durasteel Pod champion instead.

I'm a fan of this change because, once again, we can purchase Durasteel Pods with Credits.

Competition for the Hunt for the Fallen Event is available now.

Cluster of Earth is Live

Back in May I reported on a project to add a PVE Gaming Medal. Since that time we've been able to make significant progress on the project. I'll outline the changes that are already in place, but first a short summary of which activity applies to which Medal:

• Member vs Member Gaming - Cluster of Fire
• Members vs Others Gaming (Warzones, etc) - Cluster of Fire
• Members vs Environment (PvE) - Cluster of Earth

What's complete so far?

• Phase 1 - The Gaming Submission Portal has been updated by James to align with the above categories.
  
• Phase 2 - New Medal are already being awarded. The graphic for the Medal is still in development. Currently the CF and CE are of equal weight in all things DJB. NOTE: This may change after completion of Phase 4.
• Phase 3 - A complete review of old CFs was finished by the Fist Staff and James applied the coding to convert past awards to CEs as needed. Here's a high level approach to it:
  • Pre-TOR CFs: These will all remain as CFs.
  • Post-TOR (Nov 2011): James was able to pull a listing of all unique request notes for Clusters of Fire. In total there were approximately 1,200 different reasons people had received a Cluster of Fire since November 2011. This list was reviewed by the Fist Staff to determine if the listed reason should award a Cluster of Fire or Cluster of Earth. Items in question remained as a Cluster of Fire (example: Bonus Gorefest CFs which were manually requested all remained as CFs).

So, last report I held back my target completion dates for this project. I did share it with Consuls and DC in the email which followed shortly after that report. We are currently running one month ahead of schedule from my initial projections, primarily due to James being awesome and knocking out a whole ton of work as well as finding an easy to review method to determine which CFs should become CEs.

What's left?

• Phase 4 - The following weightings will be getting decided shortly, I've just sent a summary email to the GM and DGM which includes information from the Consul / DC email chain. Initially targeted for the end of July, the new plan is for this to go live just after the Q2 GMRG results are announced. This allows the existing Quarter to complete with equal value between CE and CF.
  • Prestige (weighting value will not be public)
  • GMRG Advancement / Quarterly results (result will be released in a Gaming Update)
  • Dark Sage Gaming (I expect result will be updated on Dark Sage Wiki)
  • Potentially a bonus for PvO in larger groups
  • Potentially a difference in PvO CF rewards for Wins and Losses

What can you do?

Rather than saying you can review all your Dossier History lines individually, if you'd like to see the sheet we operated off of to change CFs to CEs use the link to it. If there's a particular item you have a question on let me know, its very easy for us to change the awards if needed. Please include the row number so I can find it easily.

Destiny - House of Wolves

Last month House of Wolves DLC launched for Destiny. We've waited to come up with the Cluster numbers a bit, to see how the run times change as people learn the new content. Now that we're a month in we have confidence that the following represent appropriate values for the time invested in each activity.

• Prison of Elders
  • Level 28 - 8 CE
  • Level 32 - 16 CE
  • Level 34 - 20 CE
  • Level 35 - 24 CE
• The Shadow Thief Strike - 6 CE

May's Gaming Stats

• Total PVE Activities Reviewed and Approved by Fist Staff: 180

  • Destiny: 99
  • TOR: 41
  • Star Conflict: 23
  • Diablo 3: 17

• Total PVP Activities Reviewed and Approved by Fist Staff: 69

  • Pazaak: 43
  • Jedi Academy: 20
  • TOR Duels: 4
  • X-Wing: 2

The Tier 2 Chopping Block Gaming Platforms

On 15May2015 I included in a report that Call of Duty and Team Fortress were on the Near Retirement chopping block. There's still a bit more time if anyone would like to resurrect them, but once my next report goes live they'll be retired from the Tier 2 Gaming Platforms list.

June Gaming Competitions

• TOR Pairs: Warzone - Blast 'em! Team up with another member of the Brotherhood and complete TOR Warzones. Obtain the highest "Kill" scores you can, both you and your partner's scores will be added for your Team Total.
  
• Star Wars Commander: Heroic Defense Challenge II Person with the most stars earned in the final 8 missions wins.
• Star Wars Galactic Defense: Hunt for the Fallen Person with the highest event score wins.
• Star Conflict PVP Earn the most CFs to win.
• Stormtrooper Free-Fall Subscribe for details.
• Learn to Fly 2 Make the penguin fly.
• Speed Sporacle Challenge #15 Get the fastest time with the most correct answers to win.
• It's a pancake Reach the highest pieces to win.
• Diablo 3 Season 3 Greater Rift Ladder (Non-Seasonal Characters) Complete the highest Greater Rift on a Non-Seasonal character to place and win.
• Diablo 3 Season 3 Greater Rift Ladder (Seasonal Characters) Complete the highest Greater Rift on a Non-Seasonal character to place and win.

Gorefest

This month's Gorefests will be run on the following dates:

• Friday 19Jun2015 - Sunday 21Jun2015

Pendants of Blood

Starting 22Mar2015 the Weekly PoB has been awarded for matches from Sunday to Friday. A second PoB will be awarded for Saturday matches, consider this a "Gaming Day". Time will be based on GMT just like competitions, so Friday at 7pm EST the "Gaming Day" will begin and conclude at 7pm EST Saturday. Following completion of the Gaming Nights project this may change back to a Sunday-Saturday one per week reward. The wiki has not been updated with this new schedule for that reason.

• 09May2015: Only 2 members competed, need 5 for PoB. This days matches will be rolled into the following week.
• 09May2015 - 14May2015: DJK Athrun Zala of Clan Scholae Palatinae, PVP Score of 4.98 (29 Matches Played, 17 Matches Won)
• 15May2015: No one played PVP on this day. This days matches will be rolled into the following week.
• 15May2015 - 21May2015: JH Tasha'Vel Versea of Clan Naga Sadow, PVP Score of 20.51 (47 Matches Played, 32 Matches Won)
• 22May2015: No one played PVP on this day. This days matches will be rolled into the following week.
• 22May2015 - 28May2015: JH Tasha'Vel Versea of Clan Naga Sadow, PVP Score of 20.93 (90 Matches Played, 47 Matches Won)
• 29May2015: Only 3 members competed, need 5 for PoB. This days matches will be rolled into the following week.
• 29May2015 - 04Jun2015: JH Tasha'Vel Versea of Clan Naga Sadow, PVP Score of 8.53 (42 Matches Played, 22 Matches Won)
• 05Jun2015: No one played PVP on this day. This days matches will be rolled into the following week.
• 05Jun2015 - 11Jun2015: Only 2 members competed, need 5 for PoB. This week's matches will be rolled into the following day.
• 05Jun2015 - 12Jun2015: Only 3 members competed, need 5 for PoB. This week's matches will be rolled into the following week.

Competition Results

And now, some Crescents for gamers:

GMRG Gorefest: May 2015

• No one placed! There were no PVP matches played during the weekend.

Star Wars Galactic Defense: Undying Grudge

• 1st Place - SWL Montresor

Star Wars Galactic Defense: Bane of the Crime Lord

• 1st Place - SWL Montresor
• 2nd Place - SWM Nathan Deciarus

Star Wars Galactic Defense: War of Ideals

• 1st Place - SWL Montresor
• 2nd Place - KP Galleros Sjl
• 3rd Place - DJK Landon Cruise

Star Wars Commander: Galactic War Tournament 9

• 1st Place - GRD Nashiro Kakos
• 2nd Place - PAD Suur
• 3rd Place - JK Jo Sunni

Star Wars Commander: Incineration Tournament

• 1st Place - DJK Kooks
• 2nd Place - JH Tasha'Vel Versea
• 3rd Place - JH Bentre Stahoes

Closing

Well, that was a long report eh? And now a plug for one of the Fist Staff sponsors:

Useful Gaming Links

• Rites of Combat
  
• Gaming Information
  
• Gaming Servers
• Teamspeak Server Information