This week's report art is "The Force Awakens" by Derek Laufman
Welcome to another edition of the Taldryan Consul report. Admittedly, it's no longer nearly as regular a feature, and there are a lot of really poor excuses to explain that, but what it may lack in punctuality, you can at least always count on it making up for it with quality.. and for this week's report, we get to celebrate the buzz in the air of the most magical time. No, not Christmas. STAR WARS MOVIE RELEASE WEEK
Suck it Santa, this year we're writing letters to Sithy Claus and hoping like hell JJ Abrams hasn't ruined everything.
- Episode VII Celebration is on!
- GM's Invitational Update: Halc moves on
- Battlefront is awesome, and this is how to play with Clanmates
- * There are possessions updates and other news from the DC!
- There are a few open positions to apply for
So, at the time of writing this, I am currently 7 days and roughly... 20 hours away from when I have Star Wars tickets reserved, and we're less than a week away from the World Premier. That realization has me alternating between buzzing with excitement and just plain freaking out and not really being sure what to do with myself.
Thankfully though, the members of the Dark Council have come through for us and thought up a way that we can work off some of our nervous energy, with a series of competitions designed to celebrate the release of Episode VII!
We already have a couple updates on one or two or three of the competitions, and I know I'll be trying to compete in as many of these as I can, so make sure you all get out there and do the same thing!
Episode VII Celebration Comps
The Grand Master's invitational tournament has been running for around three weeks now, and we've now seen the final conclusion to the first round. As you all should know Taldryan offered up Halcyon and Andrelious to be our two combatants in this exclusive tournament. The battles that were fought were extremely well written, and both our contestants did an excellent job, but alas at this point, only Halc has moved onto the second round.
You can read the Combat Master's update here, as well as keep an eye on the whole competition by visiting the ACC Tournament page.
Make sure you go check out Mark's battle here as well as Halc's here so you can see what excellent work your clanmates did!
It should come as no surprise to anyone lately that the thing that has been dominating my own personal time has been none other than the newest Star Wars title out there... Star Wars Battlefront. Personally, as I've never been a hardcore shooter player, I have to say that this game is everything that I could have asked for. The visuals are stunning, the experience is pure... I mean, I never get tired of listening to blasters fire, or hearing TIEs streak overhead. It's a fanboys dream come true, and if you're able to pick up the game, I highly recommend that you do.
The first DLC: The Battle of Jakku is now out for all players who own the game, and the new mode that they added is insanely frantic and fun, and the maps of Jakku make me even more excited to see the movie. (Protip: There's a wonderful easter egg when you start the Turning Point map as Imperial.. if you look off into the background beyond the crashed Corellian corvette, you can actually see the Super Star Destroyer crashing to the ground.. likely the same Super Star Destroyer that is featured in Episode VII.)
A large contingent of our Clanmates have been playing on PS4, and a few of us stalwart master race folks have been trying to keep the banner held high on the PC. Nero probably has a fairly comprehensive list of PS4 IDs, and I've been doing my best to make sure I have everyone added on origin for PC players.
Make sure you go through and fill out the form and let us know your gamer IDs for playing.
On the DB Side of Battlefronting, we now have information regarding earning Pendants of Blood for gameplay, as well as a number of competitions geared around trying out some of the different modes.
Anyways, I'll be having a lot more free time toward the end of the month, and I hope to see more of you out there kicking ass!
It's a new(ish) month, which means we have a deluge of Dark Council reports to read and catch up on.
- Starting with the Voice
- Possessions updates! Evant has detailed the process items are going through when they're being added to the possessions buying list... and yes, canon is again the driving force behind what is being selected. That shouldn't really be surprising at this point, right?
- He also went through and detailed the aspects system that will be used to help allow customization of the items. Personally I'm really happy that we'll be able to maintain some originality without having to worry about too complex a metagame requiring the purchasing of all the parts of a lightsaber like we saw in SWTOR and KOTOR.
- There have also been some updates to the CS approvals procedures, especially concerning weapon loadouts and making them less ambiguous. All good stuff.!
- Moving onto the Herald's Office, we have some news regarding the ever popular Herald Style Hannukah. Basically news is... this year will be the last. This again shouldn't be too surprising for folks. Traditionally HSH was a sort of... once a year windfall of new weapons and robes, and then we'd be left for another year without any other massive influxes of new designs. Of late though, we're seeing a lot more designs throughout the year, and I'm personally really happy to see more content coming out all the time... which isn't to say I'm not excited to see what they have cooked up for us this year, I'm sure it's going to be killer!
- Most of the stuff from the Fist's Office has already been covered in the Battlefront section, but there is a lot of really useful stats and info in the report worth checking over.
- The MAA's Office has begun to crack down with some new rules
- Regarding co-organizers for competitions: What this means internally, is that the rule we have of always including summit members on competitions as co-organizers is no longer going to fly. The downside of this is that the summit is going to be a much bigger stickler on making sure your rules and judging criteria are rock solid before the comps even get through to the MAA's office, so be prepared for that.
- Also included are a lot of great examples for recommendation writing that are worth taking a look at.
- Finally, there has been some news that going forward event runners will no longer be able to place in their own competitions.. yes even completely obvious and fair examples that are based off score and no subjective measurement. Anyone who's run a competition in Tal already knows that I have strongly discouraged allowing yourself to place even in perfectly fair situations, but now we have it written in stone so there's at least no need to make a judgement call anymore.
- The Seneschal has been working diligently as always keeping the site running smoothly, and adding new features. One thing that will be of particular note (more on this soon from my other hat) will be the Recruitment links. Trust me on this when I say these things will be very beneficial for all members of the DB.
It's a tribune kind of day in the help wanted section of the report, with both the Wiki and Recruitment Tribune's represented. Selika is seeking out able bodied members of the DB to help with the mammoth task of maintaining our wiki. As for the other guy, he's looking for warm bodies to fill up the Recruitment office's social media and news teams.
That is a huge list of competitions available and coming up, including our very own Taldryan Holiday Bash hosted by former Consul Rian Taldrya! I'd just like to take a moment in my sign off to throw a shout out to some of our newer members, including Tyron Kesh, Jedd Kunar and Aen Van Del who have all been kicking ass with their activity lately. Also, a big congrats to Aiden Lee, who was recently elevated to the rank of Knight. You guys are all doing excellent, and I'd like to personally thank you for being so badass!
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/news/reports-taldryan-consul-report-buzzing-with-anticipation