Well, HSC '08 (Holiday Squad Competition for the new members) is just around the corner and your busy command staff have been working for over 2 months already getting this year's HSC as fun as we can possibly make it.

But let's be honest, we can't always know exactly what you want.  So while we're fine tuning some of the details of the competition, we're asking you for your input in what you want to see.

This topic is not to debate things, just to list suggestions and comment upon them.  Any posts that start to turn this topic into a debate (over word counts for example) will be deleted.

Some basic information:

• You should start receiving details about the HSC starting Monday, November 17th and a command-only story will start giving you the background information.  Then on Monday December 1st, the HSC will officially begin with all squads attempting to claim this year's title.
  
• This HSC will tie in all the past HSCs into one storyline that develops even further this year.  Summaries of the past HSCs will be made available.
  
• There will be some new scoring categories that will be announced when we reveal the score percentages (during the week of November 17th)

So, it's your HSC, let's make it fun for you

Individual squad objectives.

Exactly, Garryl. Maybe we could have a space portion, sort of like the Naval marine boarding posts...

I like the idea of two topics to space things out and the boarding idea.

We could do something with another imperial faction. Never here about them.

a kind of boarding mission would be cool, but that may be more of a navy thing.

I also liked the idea of large scale battles where both plattoons come together with a couple other plattoons to fight.

Items should be regulated I think, not to the point, but moderated because some people can be outrageous with their choices that normal  battle situations would not call for

But I like the idea of a space battle, like boarding a huge ship maybe. Though that could limit the big bang effect of blowing things up since we would end up blowing up our bubble of space.

So BIG SCALE ground battle sounds good. How about volcanic environment? Not too dangerous that we should wear special suits, just have a law]va river or 2 to give us space to write about sadistic action filled splashes

What else, give us a new enemy. Republic is a bore

But hold on a second, sorry I'm already kidnapping the story and Im not even part of this.

Graphics of course yes.

I think a category we could add in is character and NPC character biography. Both has to be displayed on the wiki, and be in correct format, and clear explanation about what the NPC's role is in the participant's story will need to be given. Maybe as a special prize for whoever does the best NPC, you can use the NPC for big plot twists or something that influences the whole mission and not just the participants.

I'm out of babble material.
Will continue later

Yeah, well, as much as I love snow and all, I really hate snowtrooper armor, it just plain sucks. Albeit I hate NPCs aswell and will pretty much kill off any that I have to deal with to keep things simple. Personally I liked the one board for all posts simply because then it actually felt like a unified campaign, otherwise it's just another co-op mission.

As for use being marines, that isn't quite true, while we are somewhat analogous to the USMC, we don't exactly fill the role of Marines. I had an idea at one point of starting a kind of 'elite' or advanced group in here that would function as Marines, but due to lack of interest, lack of membership and general luke warm responses to the idea I scrapped it.

Don't clutter everyone into one topic, it breaks down activity. I did however like the Quick Write set up, where two squads were paired to work with each other. It worked very well with Wraith and Blackjack, the two squads bonded successfully.

And I agree with Jager. I believe we should have a word count, but also offer bonus 'points' for anyone that goes a certain amount over that. Say, you need to do 300 words for your post to count, but if you do 500 your post will be worth another half a point. Let's not go to the extreme there however, having people give out 1k and 2k word posts is the best way to kill activity, in my experience.

I thought Quick Write I was the most successful as it was everyone working towards the same goal but each squad was given their own set targets and worked on their own.  It made reading through all the posts that much easier.

Kanderin Draken wrote:Say, you need to do 300 words for your post to count, but if you do 500 your post will be worth another half a point.

Dont offer any points at all on word count, just have the minimum... I find the navy comp amazing word count wise, but most is just filler which is a real let down on occasion (And annoying as all hell)

"John Johnson (the Third with three etc etc)"

The last episode of the QW was arguable the best,

same planet
same operation
separate objectives but an overall main goal.

In my opinion its how the HSC should be structured. If that's the one thing that comes of this suggestion thread, then its done its job.

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Also with the 3rd QW, Jester had to rescue a VIP then move him to an extraction so that another squad could retrieve him... the problem was that the other squads activity dropped (It happens, cant blame them). If we do structure the HSC like the 3rd QW, a way to work around such problems should be implemented... as this the hold up stagnated the story for Jester.

I think a large battle would be cool. It could have a land and space part, as suggested earlier with Imperial marines.

Zero-G (Space) combat has been planned in a way that you should enjoy, so no worries there.

As for including NPCs, we are not only fielding the two platoons in this scenario, but also the entire company of Stormtroopers (so 2 NPC platoons) as well as a vehicle attachment and a company or two of regular army troopers.

As for multiple threads, I may have them for seperate phases, but all squads should be posting on one thread, as it does provide an "unified campaign" feeling as Snipes said.  Objectives and how they are assigned to squads should be somewhat similar to the QW which I am glad to see how many people found the system enjoyable.

Snowtrooper armor is what makes the HSC... well... HSC   It's tradition   Don't worry, you should have a chance to wear something else for a bit of time, but still, expect your supposedly warm Snowtrooper suits for a good bit of time.

Quality, not quantity has always (supposedly) been at the heart of the Stormtrooper Corps and will be enforced for the HSC.

I agree with most of what has been said here. I think that the equipment load outs should be restricted to some degree to avoid the using of completely unreasonable weapons and equipment.

Also, I liked the QW format, but I think that some peeps got lost in the sheer number of posts. I don't really see a way around this, but it is an issue.

Also, I like working directly with other squads. While we may have independent objectives (each squad that is) it would really be neat if we could work with other squads that we wouldn't normally get to work and write with. It's always good to change things up a bit.

I participated in the past two, and I have seen it go both ways in those times.  With a little guideance, we should easily be able to avoid the 'spamfest'

As I said above, boarding will be different from expected

(And stop stealing our ideas )