Yup! The day has arrived! Grot did a wonderful job running this ship up until this point, and I want to take a moment to thank him for all his contributions. But the wheels gotta keep turning and so the murder lizard has stepped down from his throne and is letting me have a shot at it.
It's a lot to take in honestly, once upon a time I turned my nose up at the idea of leadership. Funny how things work out, huh? :p I'm super excited, there's so much I want to do! But first thing's first: I want you all to know how happy I am to be able to help you guys have as much fun as you can in this wonderful little club!
And that's my goal above all, you guys having the best, most enjoyable experience I can muster. So to that end my number one priority is and always will be communication. I'll be keeping up with all of you, making sure you're getting the most out of things and ensuring any feedback you have (ideas, criticisms, concerns) are listened to and taken into account with everything I do.
I'll list out the details of my ideas and plans below, I hope it's to your liking! Enjoy the report. <3
(Oh and please forgive the bare look of the report, I haven't quite gotten images down yet and wanted to get this report out as soon as possible. Next one will be better, promise!)
So to rehash, Grot the Great and Powerful has resigned from his position as Battle Team Leader. But he's still around, and active as ever! So don't worry, we'll still have plenty of baby legged, suit wearing, angry murder lizard action to enjoy!
At this point I'm going to break down what plans I have in store for the team. I am open to feedback of all sorts on these, so let me know if you have any thoughts at all.
Firstly, I am scheduling a bi-weekly comp series for the foreseeable future. This series will be tailored as best as I can to the interests of all of you guys and gals based on what I can gather from our talks. So make sure you communicate as well as you can what does and does not work for you moving forward! I can always adjust things and come up with something new and better if the content at the time isn't working for you all, though I am taking into consideration multiple people so keep that in mind.
I'll also be heavily factoring in what reliably produces consistent enthusiastic participation. The enthusiastic part is very important to me, because if you guys aren't having fun and are just checking off comps out of a sense of obligation I will have failed. Hopefully this coincides nicely with what's communicated to me but I'm aware things aren't always so simple or straightforward. But I'll do everything I can to make sure y'all are happy with things. <3
Secondly, I will be attempting to incorporate lessons learned from other comps in Arcona and the DB and set up a member interactive and responsive plotline. Naturally, I'll be doing my best to tailor our fictional direction to what fits best for all of our collective characters, but I also want you all to have a say in the matter! So I'll be implementing a “choose your own adventure” style thing into the comps we run during major narrative points so that you can all choose how the team approaches and ultimately deals with whatever decision needs to be made.
I've yet to determine exactly how I want to go about this. I have the idea of the standard multiple choice prompt thing, whereby whatever gets the most submissions wins out. But while that might work in larger units we're pretty small so it may not be as effective.
Alternatively I could do a system whereby the winning submissions dictate our direction to incentivize giving it your all, but that could leave some feeling left out of the process. We could also settle it through a RP session going over the span of a few days, or we could just do some polling. If you all have any suggestions, please send me your thoughts!
Thirdly, I wish to revamp the Spectre Cell wiki page to bring it up to speed with the modern era. Our wiki pages are sorely out of date and need some love. So I'm gonna be devoting some time and effort to fixing as much as I can. After the SC page is complete we can see about moving on to other Arcona pages;, we could make a whole project out of it!
To this end I'll be extending an offer to anyone who wants to help out fixing up our wiki's. I'll be able to delegate tasks to you which will be good experience, will look good on any future apps you make and will allow me to recommend you for some shinies!
Connected to this, I also have the plan to help you all create a custom wiki page for your characters which will then be listed on the Spectre Cell wiki page. Or for those of you with pages already, helping you update them! This will allow other people to have a 24/7 reference to your character and things that they need to know about them, making things easier and more convenient for everyone.
Fourthly, I will be looking into creating an anonymous form or forum for members to address their thoughts and concerns to if they aren't comfortable addressing me directly or having their name attached to anything. Pretty straightforward, shouldn't be too hard.
Finally, I'll be looking into ways to improve our fiction comps. Far too many fiction comps get barely any entries, regardless of how much or how little time is given. I understand the additional effort and time devoted to crafting a fiction entry has a negative motivational impact on even those among us who live for storytelling. So I'll be investigating how we might make these more accessible to everyone. Again, your thoughts and opinions matter a lot! So poke me if you've got any ideas. <3
We have some fresh faces around! I want everyone to give a warm welcome to Arthur Starstruck (aka Armin), Talvarehlekaz Qylraan (I'm gonna stick with Tal from now on lol) and Karran! I know Karran isn't new new, but he arrived after the last report so I wanted to give him a warm belated welcome anyway!
We're super stoked to have you here and I hope you have a great time!
Oh boy do we have a lot to catch up on from the last time we sent a report out! So to make this easy I went through all the relevant news updates and reports and made small summaries for them as well as linking them to the articles.
So this is mostly an overall breakdown of how the clan did in the Balancing the Books competition. In short: we did awesome! Participation was crazy good, like up there with Vendetta levels of activity. Fantastic, my dudes.
From the Q himself! More breakdowns of our winnings and member specific activity. It's also got a fiction update, which I highly suggest all you lovelies check out! And an important announcement for the future of Battle Teams is in there too, might be good to know about. Wink wink nudge nudge. :p
More breakdowns, placements, you get the picture by now. But it also has a link to the event's fictional conclusion! Fun stuff, if you got time on your hands give it a good old skim.
We got a bunch of stuff related to gaming from Star Wars Celebration in Detroit not too long ago, and this report breaks that all down! Go have a look at what goodies we have in store for us!
Fist Magistrate Opening Report
Drac, Lord of The Salt, is accepting applications for a Magistrate position! Basically you'll be an assistant helping out with various things that need doing, helping to shape the landscape for the gaming platform on our site!
Drac says the apps have no end date, he's just waiting until the right person comes along. So if you're interested, give it a shot! Don't be intimidated if you haven't done leadership before, so long as you got drive, the capacity to learn and a love of games you should do very well!
Drac gives some clarification to some gaming stuff, like cluster racing and game testing. Go check it out to keep on the up and up of your gaming experiences here.
Arch, The Birb Lord, talks a bit about his perceptions and experiences with Time Out's in the ACC and how he's working to find a solution to their frequency. He also mentions the ACC Tourney which I'm afraid is well underway already, sorry for all you who missed out, but there's always next time!
Another report from good old Archibald! This one just dropped, giving some ACC clarification (how armor functions, enforcement of our PG-13 rule, etc.), detailing changes made to the loadout system as well as hinting at some new upcoming things! Go check it out y'all.
Mmm juicy fiction stuff. My personal favorite! We have some updates to the CS system (including how slugs and lightsabers interact) as well as the addition of a new selectable race! Our boy Wally mentions a few other things, go check it out!
That's right my dudes! We now got, free of charge, a new NPC slot available from rank Journeyman 4! No longer do you have to be an Equite to enjoy having more than one character in the system. Read up to learn the details!
SA news! For all you smarty pants academics and test takers out there! Of special note is the hiring of new professors! Exciting stuff, being a professor is super cool and important, getting to shape the courses and thus the way people in the DB acquire information, and then you get to judge the fruits of people's labor in a socially acceptable way! :p Check it out if that sounds up your alley.
Art! Pictures! Nutrition for your eyeballs! The first section is for a comp that is too late to sign up for unfortunately, but they do mention some new additions to the Herald staff, including Arcona's own Alaisy! Props to them, fantastic job. We also have the addition of some new graphics! Robes, weapons and accessories! Go check out what new stuff we have in stock.
An update on the Shroud War! For anyone interested, here's the details!
Star Wars Celebration 2019 Recap
It's all there in the name. Go check out what cool stuff we got to see at Celebration!
Talvarehlekaz
Arthur
Karran
Cawthren
Grot
Good old Lizard boy has been rather busy! So let's break it down: He won FIRST PLACE in the Balancing the Books series earning Galeres a huge credit bonus! Serious props. He's also been promoted to Raider, very nice.
Now the long part: 27 comps participated in, 12 PvP matches, 24 PvE matches, 5 ACC battles judged, 2 SA courses passed, 2 degrees earned, 1 Diamond Star Crescent, 1 Ruby Star Crescent, 6 Amethyst Star Crescents, 3 Sapphire Star Crescents, 1 Emerald Star Crescent, 1 Pendant of Blood, 92 Clusters of Fire, 2 Clusters of Ice, 106 Clusters of Earth and 6 Clusters of Graphite earned.
Also he's continued serving as both Wiki Staff and ACC judge this whole time. I've said it before and I'll say it again dude, you have a problem. Frakking machine man over here. :p
Xenna
Alara
Satsi
Scarlett
So these ones may be for DB wide but they were made by our very own peeps! So I highly recommend checking them out and showing some support for your brothers and sisters. <3
A comp by our own Q! All about writing a fiction detailing the gritty realities of ground war past all the glamour of what you normally see in fictions. A very interesting premise that I really like, I'll be having fun with this one! It ends on May 5th, so y'all got time to figure your stories out and get them in! Have fun with it. :3
Another Q production! Graphics focused this time, it's all about drawing up your character in Royal/Noble period garb for an audience with a Queen! This one ends May 8th, so all you wonderful artists get in there and show that Queen how fancy you all can be!
This one comes from our lovable murder robo-lizard Skarbles! For those gamers out there, Hearthstone is a fun way to pass some time and show everyone just how much of a boss you are. Earn them points!
From the desk of the one true Dame of the Goats and learner of younglings, Zuji! We got a bunch of flash games here for you to test your mettle against. Comp ends May 28, so have fun!
Trivia! This one from Arcona's own sinister doc Rhylance! For all you lore loving braniacs out there, this one should be an interesting challenge. It ends May 31st. Show us how big that noggin is!
A bunch of gaming competitions for the gaming society! Blood for the blood gods, etc. Have fun with it! Everything you need to know is in the link. This one ends June 30th.
Overwatch: Crashing the Archives
More gaming! This one from our friendly neighborhood red panda/murder kitty Turel! Overwatch is a really cool, like Team Fortress 2 from back in the day but better. So go have some fun! Make friends, kick some butt, chew bubblegum! This one ends May 8th.
Flash games! Get your flash games here! Hot and ready, good for when you need that quick gaming fix! This one ends August 21st.
This one is interesting. It's all about taking music and creating art solely from what the notes make you feel and see in your mind's eye. For all our artists I highly recommend this one.
Social Media: Featured Artist of the Month
For all our artists out there, this one stretches the entire year. You don't even gotta subscribe to this one, although it's recommended. Just join the Art Channel on telegram and share your awesome pics, and you gotta chance to win each month! Winners have the option of having their art shared on our social media pages to help recruit more newblets to the fold! You can so no that though if you don't want your art out there, and you won't lose your shinies for doing so.
For too long has our lovely academy of knowledge gone without a snappy motto! So it's up to you all to come up with what phrase best embodies this institution of learning. The winner could very well have their submission end up canon and immortalized on our website! This ends April 21st, one day away. So work fast! I believe in you. <3
Do you just love showing off how smart you are? Like the challenge of Academia? Well the SA offers a competition stretching the entire year to see who each month can successfully passcthe most SA courses and get the most diplomas! So show them what Spectre Cell is made of you smarties!
Star Wars: The Old Republic Puzzle Series
Puzzles galore! These ones based on the Old Republic MMO. Lots of then to go through, the comp ends May 1st. Have fun with it!
DJB at SWC 2019: Capture This
Wallaby's series from Star Wars Celebration! Come up with a funny caption for the images displayed!
Kick butt, take names, and have fun!
I hope you've enjoyed my first report, sloppy as it may be heh. I'll get better at it as time goes on, but for now you lovely people keep being awesome and having all the fun! I'll let you know when plans start getting kicked into motion, very soon I hope! Until then, peace out!
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You remind me to read the clan fiction, heh. And do caption comps. Aaaand hello with wiki work, I volunteer!
Great first report, Ma'am. o7
#ghostsquad
Congrats on your first report Julie!
Ahh, information! I love it so! Great report! Looking forward to working with you, Juli!