[[New Report Graphics Pending]]

I’ll start by saying how much I appreciate the opportunity given to me to continue to work on possessions, and now fully integrate it into the entire Brotherhood and establish necessary documentation and processes to see it a long term sustained success. Everyone I’ve worked with has been awesome, excited, and as necessary constructive in the way they go about concerns with progress. In this report I’ll hopefully give everyone a good insight into where things are at with possessions, specifically what engagements the membership will have with the Regent staff and what comes next.

Possessions Beta

A while back I asked for members to sign up to express interest in helping with the possessions beta, and a limited number of people were added from that signup across all units and communications were sent with some information on how to help as well as some guides and access. The hope here was to get new insights into the offerings, the relative pricings, the site user interface, to improve possessions for everyone. I’ve had mixed success so far, from helpful insights and questions about how things work from some, to irrelevant feedback based on the instructions and where we’re at today in possessions from others, to no communications at all from others who seem to be ignoring me. That said, I’ve been hesitant to add more people, and instead leaned heavily on those who have proven themselves to be valuable contributors which I greatly appreciate.

So how will access roll out from here?

• Clans: Right now, only a handful of Clans have access to purchase possessions, mostly with the intent on testing interfaces and trying to break things. Many different improvements have taken place, structure of transport and many descriptions updated, and things are ready to enter an open beta of sorts for Clans. As soon as we can, all the Clan possessions and credit balances will be reset, all Consuls and Proconsuls will be given access as well as credits with the intent to do an open beta for Clan possessions for all Clans. Intended as a final push for that half of the experience to go live.

• Members: There is, as mentioned above, a list of members who were added to evaluate and give feedback on things. I will continue to collect feedback and review as it comes in but the next big stage will come after equipping and salary updates. As soon as we have new salary in place for all members, and the slotting is live and members can start equipping items, we will move forward into an open beta and add navigation links and everyone will get access at once. This will come with a period of feedback including balance and adjustments while things are documented and we get ready to launch officially.

• Live: Being live will likely come with a period of resets and adjustments, as well as a series of guides and documentation for members, and then it will be officially launched. At that point salary will be well controlled, items will be permanent, beta banners removed and we move forward. This would be the case for both members and units.

Possessions Status

• Items: There are 624 different items active in the system that can be acquired by either members or units. Those span 27 types and 67 categories each with its own description, source, size, cost, available room for aspects and possible restrictions on ownership. We had to draw a line somewhere and that's where it got drawn. The system was designed to easily expand and add items and that will surely be done in the future, but right now this is the list that everyone will see once we reach beta with some possible adjustments based on some open feedback still pending review. This work is basically done, with fine tuning happening opportunistically but ready for launch otherwise.

• Item Aspects: As perhaps noted elsewhere, items in possessions will be modified via Item Aspects. These can be either public or you can create your own custom Aspects that are sent to the Regent staff for approval. In general, the more rare an item is, the more customizable it will be. I have been working closely with Atra who has taken up a major supporting role in this endeavor with the Voice staff, though with the advent of the Regent position I am looking to transition this when appropriate.

• Salary: I’ve mentioned quite a few times about salary being temporary. In general everyone should see significant increases to their salary once possessions is launched in line with what items we believe should be afforded. It’s all being carefully balanced in a 2,268 KB file with 19 tabs, 2 pivot tables and a pie chart. I think we’re in a pretty good spot and close to having something to move forward with into beta.

• Costs: Everything in possessions, all items that can be purchased, use a specific formula to determine its cost relative to other items in the system. After a lot of messing around with source books and Canon references to cost, none of it made any sense to use for the DJB versus costing all items relative to one another in our own system. This has been done after a lot of extensive review and evaluation, and is done, in a way that allows future expansion of our list and easily adding new items with appropriate cost to drop in without destroying balance.

• Stores: All the stores have names, all the stores have inventories sorted out, and descriptions. They all function nicely based on an initial round of feedback to James and coding improvements to help the UX. Going forward we will adjust stocking rules as necessary so some items stock more than 1 of something to improve buying, and I am working with Vyr to create graphical banners to improve navigation and experience of using the stores, but they are overall in good spot.

• Buying Experience: As a general note, possessions will work a lot more like Ebay or Craigslist where it’s a marketplace of actual items for sale than Amazon where you technically place an order for something, and then it’s filled in some manner. The items seen for sale in stores are the actual items themselves. There are many reasons for this setup, and it actually enables some pretty cool functionality this way, but the experience has been tailored to highlight and work with this. As such, in addition to going to stores to find what you want, members can also head to a research tool that lets them search all possible items that could be owned. This has the added benefit of also showing items like Society perks that aren’t purchased, but rather earned and how to get them.

• Slotting: Call it slotting, equipping, whatever term you use it’s where members can actually put items into a kit to show what they have equipped or on their character. This is under development currently but the plan is to have this take place on a CS, along with a text field for those who wish to add additional notation on where a specific item might be equipped like, my dagger is hidden in my boot. Will work closely with the Voice and Combat Master to make sure that the integration of these systems makes sense for fictional realism as well as ACC matches.

• Triggers: Certain items will be granted, not purchased, upon certain conditions being met. These are considered Awards for the most part by the site. This includes medals or society type awards or even other types like ACC champion’s bracers. This list is being developed and still need to be fully tested with the Award side of being more straightforward, but some things like lightsabers and robes that members are given access to automatically being sorted out as we go.

• Administrative: I could call this section other, but there are many other loose ends to be tied up. Including hiring and training and developing a staff to help out with this stuff. Document everything so that how it all works and why design decisions were made are recorded for easier future expansion. Guides for members to help as a crash course to understand the system. Access to manually adjust things including credits so that the Regent can maintain integrity of the system. Policies to help with fairness and consistency going forward for a reliable experience. Tying the possessions system to the Herald’s dossier graphics system. Much of this is only recently coming up as we get near the end and it’s all pretty exciting stuff.

Regent Staff

I am interested in hiring at least two Magistrates to join my staff, though I’ll make a decision on final composition depending on the strengths and skill sets of those who apply. You can look at the Regent wiki page to get a good idea of what I’ve been tasked with in my new role. I’ll be looking to my new team to discuss policies and design elements of possessions, test features and help with the final efforts to get the system launched. As well as prepare to take on the day to day tasks when things are live which will include approving Item Aspects for members and answering questions about things. Eventually helping as a team to put together a roadmap of future projects after we’re live for the amazing places we want to take possessions. If you are interested at all in joining my new staff, please send me an application, ideally with Regent Staff somewhere in the subject by the end of this month on Sept. 30th. Though I may close sooner with strong applicants adding one or more members to staff as appropriate. As a new staff, I’m not sure what to say for what you can include, but knowledge of Star Wars, familiarity and experience with the CS Aspect System, and general excitement to be working on possessions would be key.

Regent Staff Links

• None currently. Will definitely be some in the future.

Conclusion

I am personally excited at where we’re at and I can’t wait to have everything out there for everyone else to enjoy. I try and be transparent as possible without enabling too many voices on this thing while it needs to keep going. Also excited to see who is interested in joining my team and hope I can put together a solid group together to help see this done and going strong by the end of the year.

In darkness,

Evant Taelyan
Regent of the Brotherhood